Never Good Enough
by WhisperToMeSoftly
Summary: post-war. no longer a oneshot. Prince Akulon was the accidental son of Fire Lady Azula. Zuko decides to take a chance, and steal his nephew far away. But there's only one real place to go, and he isn't welcome. Maiko, Teoph.
1. Limp

The limp was pronounced—Zuko winced every time the child took a step towards him. Black hair, golden eyes, pale, flawless skin…he looked every bit the Prince he was meant to be. The son of the Fire Lady Azula.

But appearances could be deceiving.

"Uncle Zuko!" the child exclaimed happily, making his unsteady way towards him. "You're back!"

"Yes, Aku," Zuko said with a quiet, hidden smile. "The North Pole finally fell."

"Yay!" he cried happily, clapping his small hands together. Zuko's smile fell slightly, but he knew better than to contradict the little prince. "Does that mean we win?"

"We're getting closer and closer every day," Zuko whispered, pulling Prince Akulon on to his lap. Azula's features were becoming more and more prominent on the boy's face; he was—Zuko had to admit—a beautiful child.

A beautiful mistake.

Akulon looked up at him with a contented smile. "What was it like, at the North Pole?" he asked curiously.

Zuko took a deep breath. So many emotions, not enough time to decipher them all… "It's very, very cold. Colder than you can imagine. Everything there is white—"

"Everything?"

"Everything. And everything is smooth—smooth, cold, and white."

"Sounds like a rock."

Zuko chuckled, wondering if _he_ was like this when he was a child. (Oh, how Iroh must have loved him…) "It does, doesn't it? But the North Pole is much, much colder."

The boy kicked his legs back and forth. "But that don't matter, right? You can use fire and be warm!"

"That's right," Zuko said distractedly, rubbing his nephew's arm. "We can use fire."

"No. Not we. I can't."

A frown appeared on his face as he glanced down at the child. "What do you mean?"

"I can't. I tried. No fire came. Not like before."

Zuko felt his heart grow suddenly cold, as if he was once more at the North Pole, watching those beautiful white walls crumble. No fire…but the boy had been a fairly good firebender before. He had been learning. He certainly wasn't a prodigy—in fact, he might have even been below average. But he was bright and eager to learn, and he had been progressing fast.

"Why not?" he demanded, and Akulon looked away.

"Ever since I got my limp, fire doesn't come."

Oh, Agni. Agni help him.

Zuko's breath came shorter and harsher, and he held the child a little tighter than he had before. "But you've tried, Aku?"

He nodded. "Lotsa times. It doesn't come."

"Prince Akulon!" A nursemaid came rushing from the hallway, bursting into the courtyard. Momentarily blinded by the sunlight, she squinted at the two sitting on the bench. "Prince Akulon! You have lessons with your tutor!"

"Oh, I forgot," the prince replied blandly, in the way only young children can. He hopped off of Zuko's lap, saying, "Bye Uncle Zuko! Can we play later?"

"Of course, of course," Zuko muttered distractedly. "Be good for your tutor."

"I will!" the child said, waving at him. Then he turned, and was led away by his nursemaid—each limping step was like a physical blow to Zuko's insides, and he found he could not watch his nephew walk away.

He needed to talk to the Fire Lady.

-x-x-

"Fire Lady Azula," he said, his voice dangerous as he stepped into the throne room. His sister, slightly aged but all the more beautiful for it, was consulting with three others and several pieces of parchment in the corner of the room. She looked up as he entered, her expression brightening somewhat. (How could she lace menace into every action?)

"Excuse me, gentlemen," she said serenely. "You are dismissed. We will pick this topic up again at the next meeting." There was much bowing and murmuring, and then all of them vanished behind a heavy crimson curtain.

Azula looked ravishing in a shapely orange dress, accented in reds and golds. Her hair had been let down, to hang around her shoulders loosely in a way that seemed entirely arranged. "My dear brother," she said with a smile. "How can I help you?"

"Akulon can no longer bend," Zuko snarled. "He told me this morning."

"Really?" As much as Azula was usually stoic, an expression of the briefest surprise flashed across her face for a fraction of a second. "That's interesting."

Zuko felt his anger building, rising, expanding inside of him until he thought he would explode. "He said he hasn't been able to firebend since he got his limp."

Something sparkled behind his sister's gaze—but he couldn't put a finger on the emotion. "Is that so? Even more interesting." Turning away from him, she walked towards the throne in the center of the room, still talking as she went. "Obviously he's too weak to bear the pain, and his bending is suffering because of it."

"He's a _child_, Azula!" Zuko shouted, striding forward with his fists clenched. "How could you have done it?"

Azula swiftly placed herself with care on her throne, looking perfectly at ease. "I know what this is," she said softly. "Whenever you see him, you see yourself. You see your scar, you see your exile."

Zuko was too furious to say anything.

"He's not going to be exiled, and unlike you, he deserved that scar."

"How so?" Zuko asked, unsettled.

"He flubbed a training exercise while I was watching. When I told him to do it again, because he had done it horribly, he said, 'But I don't want to! I hate that exercise!' Such rebellion could not go unpunished, Zuko."

Horror was rising in him so fast he couldn't speak. He opened and closed his mouth several times, like a fish gasping for air, gasping for life—

"Plus, I gave him two more chances. I told him he should do it right now, and he told me he wanted to show me another exercise instead. I told him again to do the exercise, and he refused."

Zuko finally found his voice. But when it came out, it was hoarse and strained. "So you shot his leg with a lightning bolt."

"As far as he knows, it was an accident," Azula said nonchalantly, examining her fingernails. "That's what I told him. He believes me. But still, children are like animals: they remember what causes them pain. He will not disobey me again."

Millions and millions of chaotic, furious, confused and hateful thoughts whirled endlessly around Zuko's mind. No, she had to be kidding. She couldn't be serious. She had scarred her own child…because he had refused to do what she wanted. Aku would always walk with a limp; he would never be able to run properly; he wouldn't be able to _firebend_…

He'd be the reject Prince of the Fire Nation. The one everyone pitied. The one everyone looked down on, saying, "Oh, what a pity."

What had started as an ache in Zuko's heart was now flowering into a sharp, fresh pain. He felt as if someone was stabbing him with one of Mai's long, flawless knives. No need to twist the blade—it had already pierced him straight through. The pain was enough to last him a lifetime.

Azula lowered her hand—apparently satisfied with the condition of her nails—and stared curiously at Zuko. "Zuzu, you don't think I did the wrong thing, did you?"

Zuko looked up at her, as if seeing her for the first time. Malice and distaste lined her every move, her every word, each amber fleck in her golden irises. Why hadn't he been able to see this before, when he had been forced to make the choice? (_Avatar or your nation…Avatar or your nation…_)

He remembered his own worst childhood memory, when he had openly told a general that he was wrong.

And he imagined himself saying, _Azula, you're insane. You can't keep this child. You can't keep abusing him like this_.

But he couldn't say the words out loud. He couldn't fall from grace again. Not again. Not this time. No matter how much that blade in his heart stabbed and pierced.

"No, Azula. Not at all," he heard himself whisper. He saw himself—as if from outside of his body—bowing deeply, his head inclined. He saw himself walking calmly from the throne room, gently pushing aside the curtains and walking into the hallway.

He saw himself walking out of the palace, to where the walls protected the city.

He saw himself walking away from the walls, towards the volcanic cliffs surrounding his island nation.

He saw himself standing on one of those cliffs facing the ocean, the wind making his robe ripple and snap. He no longer heard it.

He saw faces swimming before his eyes (_an old lined face, eyes alight with affection; beautiful, ocean blue eyes and dark brown hair; a cloudy, unseeing gaze that seemed to look right through him_) and the sheer force of emotion brought him to his knees.

Akulon would be a scarred prince with no family, no reputation. He wouldn't be able to make his parent proud, no matter how hard he tried. He would never be good enough.

Zuko would never be good enough. Not for his country, not for little Aku, and not for the world.

He had already betrayed them all, hadn't he?


	2. Going Home

**AN: After multiple requests that this be continued, I obliged. I now have an entire plot line running through my head; expect this to go on for several chapters, although it will not be a very long piece. It will just be a story, not a novel. **

**Remember to tell me what you think, and give me advice. I love whatever you say.**

**Enjoy.**

Zuko didn't know how long he sat on that cliff, watching the ocean. His mind had wandered, he had lost all track of time. Nothing had seemed very important. He was alone at last: alone with his thoughts.

But he wasn't at all sure if that was what he wanted.

His thoughts meandered from memory to memory. He remembered Iroh, the uncle who had always been more of a father. He remembered the last time he had seen him.

_The glance of utter disappointment. Not a word was said. He stayed in the shadows, even as Zuko raised a hand towards him. A silent plea for him to stay. But the blood of the child—the last of his race, the hope of the world—stained the Prince's hands. He himself could see it. And apparently, the Dragon of the West saw it even clearer, despite the shadows._

_He always did see it clearer than Zuko ever did._

-x-x-

He walked to the palace in the rain and in the dark. Night had fallen, as had the storm clouds that had been gathering all afternoon. His robe felt especially heavy as he traipsed through the courtyards, and his shaggy, unkempt ebony hair (that had since fallen out of its topknot) was now plastered to his skin. No matter. No one would see him. No one except the one person who wouldn't care.

He opened the door quietly, peering in. A single torch was lit in the corner: the only source of light. The rest of the room was nearly pitch black.

"Uncle Zuko?"

Zuko smiled and walked in. That hadn't been the voice of a child half-asleep. Aku had been waiting for him. "Hello, Aku," he said, closing the door behind him. In the faint light of the torch, he could see the child sitting up and looking at him. Then Aku smiled.

"You're late!"

"I know; I took a walk."

"You're wet, too."

"It's raining out."

"I know." The Crown Prince looked away, to another wall. "I can hear it. It sounds quiet, and you have to not say anything and not move at all or else you won't hear the sound it makes."

Zuko knelt by the bedside. "You like the rain?"

Aku turned his gaze towards him with a light, childish smile. "Of course I do! Everyone loves rain! You do, right Uncle?"

A faint, forced smile. "Yes, of course I do. Everyone loves rain."

_The boy's corpse lying in the streets of the Fire Nation capital, right next to the former Fire Lord's. Zuko's outstretched fingers steamed slightly in the downpour, the remnants of the lightning still making his hand tingle. He had done it. He had killed the Avatar._

_And his father wasn't even alive to see it._

The girl's scream, agonizing and heart wrenching—he could barely see her through the storm, through the driving rain, but he knew she was running toward her fallen friend—

Aku flung himself back on to his pillows, curling up on to his side. Zuko knew what was expected of him, and pulled the sheets up to tuck them under the little prince's chin. The boy smiled up at him, nothing but affection and adoration in his gaze. Zuko felt his chest begin to ache.

"Aku," he began cautiously, one hand resting on the boy's shoulder. "Do you like it here? In the palace?"

There was a silence. Aku looked up at the ceiling, a slight frown on his face as he thought. Zuko could almost hear the gears working inside the child's mind. He had proposed a difficult question…at the tender age of 6, who knew what—

"I do," Aku replied finally, and some unknown emotion tugged at Zuko's heartstrings. "But I don't want to stay here. I wanna go and see the deserts and the North Pole, and I wanna see the temples of the air people. I don't want any more lessons, and I don't want any more court. I wanna go with you to fight people and go to war, and meet strangers and have adventures. And, besides," he broke off, now burying his face a little bit in his pillow. His gaze was no longer on Zuko, or the ceiling, but on the floor. "Mommy doesn't want me."

-x-x-

Zuko shut the front door as quietly as he could, silently dripping rainwater on to the kitchen floor. At such a late hour, he couldn't find a carriage to take him home, so he had walked in the rain.

And with each squishy, cold, wet step, he had wondered what exactly the little Akulon had been thinking when he had said, 'Everyone likes rain.'

"Where have you been?"

Even before he turned around he was smiling at that familiar, flat voice. "Azula found some excuse to keep me," he replied, glancing up at her through his drenched mess of dark hair. She raised an eyebrow, her arms folded neatly across her chest.

"Next time she does that, tell her I'm pregnant."

"_That_'ll make her send me straight home. Might give her a heart attack too."

"If she makes my husband stay at the palace on a cold, rainy night the very _day_ he comes back from a two-month siege at the North Pole, I don't think I would mourn her all that much."

He grinned. "I'd hug you if I wasn't so wet."

A small smile tugged at the corners of Mai's mouth. "As if I care."

Thunder crashed faintly outside as the two clung to each other, made desperate by a long separation. _It was too long_, Zuko thought faintly as he buried his face in her neck. _It was too long to stay away from her._

-x-x-

Gentle sunlight shone through the window above, showing dust floating gently through the air of the bedroom. Zuko lay sprawled across his side, softly snoring, one arm over his head. Mai touched his cheek gently. How peaceful he looked when he was sleeping… Her fingers lingering on his skin, she stood and wrapped a robe around her before going downstairs.

With Azula as the Fire Lady, she had received a very enviable place at court. Of course, Azula couldn't show _too_ much favor to her friends, so she wasn't one of the Fire Lady's personal advisors. But she was still high up on the noble hierarchy, and her family was well-known in the region—even if she no longer spent her free time with Azula and Ty Lee.

Ty Lee, in the last letter she had sent, had said that she was rejoining the circus under a new name to avoid the publicity she and Mai had gotten while fighting against the Avatar. Apparently she was now Kyristal. What had made her spell her name that way was anyone's guess, although Mai had smiled at the sight. It was so like her.

Azula had supported Zuko when he had proposed to Mai. She saw it as a good match, and had publicly given them her blessing. They were a celebrity couple in the Fire Nation, and often seen together in court. Mai couldn't complain. Her love for Zuko had grown even more once she had stopped her friendship with Azula. She was free to do what she wished now; she was no longer the Princess' lackey. As such, she felt at liberty to love Zuko as much as she pleased. And she was delighted to find her feelings returned.

And yet, she still found it easy and comforting to hide her feelings behind a blank mask and a toneless voice.

A noise made her turn. "Good morning, sleepyhead," she said, sipping her firet (a hot drink that was growing ever popular amongst the nobles, and had even made its way down to the commoners). "Have a good night's sleep?"

"Better than I've had in a long, long time," he said honestly, kissing her temple and making his way into the kitchen. "Any firet for me?"

"I'm sure you could bribe the chef into making you some."

"You took all of it?"

"Never knew you liked it."

A wry smile quirked at the corners of his mouth as he glanced back at her. She responded with one of her own.

He knew he would find a cup waiting for him, warming by the oven.

-x-x-

"Did you visit Aku yesterday?"

It was a Sunday; they didn't have to be in court, and they weren't obligated to be at the palace. So instead, they remained in their bedclothes, sitting at the kitchen table, sipping firet and eating chilled fruit.

Zuko looked up. Mai knew how much he cared for his nephew, but she had never expressed any interest before. "Yes I did," he replied. "Why?"

She rolled her eyes. "He was pestering me about you. Asking where you were, what you were doing…apparently no one would tell him, not even Azula."

Not even Azula.

"Yes, I did see him," he replied, his face blank as he plucked another piece of fruit from the plate. "And I said good night as usual."

Mai shook her head slowly, never taking his eyes away from him. "You really do love that boy, don't you?"

A shrug. "I'm his uncle. Iroh set the standard pretty high for me; I'm determined to reach it."

"Do you think you have?"

"I don't think I ever will."

-x-x-

"Do you like tea, Aku?"

The child looked up at him. "No. I hate it."

Zuko nodded. "So do I."

Hand-in-hand, Zuko was leading his young nephew through the trees behind the palace walls. The small forest grew in the ashes of the volcano, something that was apparently beneficial to their growth. But nothing smaller than a tree was present, so he and Aku walked on soft, springy dirt between wooden trunks.

"My uncle used to love it."

"Really? I think it tastes gross."

"It does." He gently ruffled the young boy's hair. "What do you like, then?"

"You mean, to eat?"

"No, just…in general. What do you like?"

Aku put his finger on his lip, staring straight ahead as he thought. "Well…I like playing in the gardens. I like listening to the rain at night. I like looking at pictures of Daddy. I liked playing with Kazon. And I like firebending."

The child had no idea how much he hurt Zuko.

"Daddy" was a young man called Shokai, who was one of Azula's first personal guards. He was much like Azula herself: cold, calculating, and manipulative. But when it came to Azula, something in him would melt. Something in his gaze, perhaps, or his tone. They began to spend more and more time together, although when Zuko overheard them (which was often) they never spoke in romantic terms. To him, it just seemed to be witty banter with an undertone of competition.

All it had taken was one night.

With the news that she was pregnant, Azula had banished Shokai. No one had heard from him since.

Akulon was never meant to be born.

Kazon was the son of a noble. That noble had previously (foolishly) mentioned to another how his son was better than Aku at firebending. He and his family had been banished and stripped of their titles. Aku hadn't been told where Kazon went, only that he was gone and wouldn't be coming back.

Firebending _had_ been a passion of Aku's. Zuko knew well that the young prince would show off his newfound moves and skills to his uncle whenever he had the chance. Zuko would show him tricks and illusions that he had learned from traveling throughout the nation, and Aku would learn them with ease.

And now, no matter how much he tried, he could not summon a flame.

"Why won't the flame come?" Aku asked, stopping and pulling on Zuko's hand. Zuko noticed that his lower lip trembled as if he were holding back tears, and he leaned his weight on Zuko's hand as if he simply wished to hang there, dangling from it. "It used to. It used to come real good."

"I know, Aku, I know…" Zuko said quietly, picking the prince up and carrying him back in the direction of the palace. "I think it won't come because you're afraid."

"Afraid? I'm not afraid!"

"You aren't afraid of Mommy?"

A small silence, where Aku looked at him with indignation in his gaze lingering from his last statement. "I don't know."

"She's the one who burned you, right?"

"Yes…"

"Are you afraid she's going to do it again? She's going to burn you again if you do something wrong?"

The child bent his first finger and put it in his mouth, a habit he had broken several years past. "No…" he murmured.

"Are you sure?"

"I don't know!" he cried suddenly, with a child's whine in his voice. "I wanna go home, Uncle, I wanna go home!"

Zuko was startled by this sudden outburst, but he quickly hugged Aku to him and rubbed his back. "All right, Aku, we're going home. We're going home."

In hindsight, he should have predicted something like that would happen. A child had an intense bond to his mother. Even when the mother did something wrong, the child always thought it was his fault. The mother was blameless, in his mind.

For a father it was much the same thing. And Zuko hadn't placed blame on his father until he was 16 or 17.

Aku had many years to go before he would finally understand.

Many years of a broken childhood.

Could he last that long?


	3. Impulse

AN: Just for the information of my luvverly and wonderful reviewers: I update infrequently

AN: Just for the information of my luvverly and wonderful reviewers: I update infrequently. Just know that there will always be another chapter coming. It may take a while, but I don't abandon something once I start it.

**And like I said, I have a whole plotline for this story now. (Which usually means it turns out good. I started my fanfic 'Ugliness' without a plotline in mind, and it's suffering because of it. I must apologize for that.)**

**This is also going to be very stop-and-go. And what I mean by that is, it'll just be a compilation of scenes. Some of them will be short, some of them will be long. But they will all make the story, and they will all propel the action in some way. Expect it to get more exciting from here on out.**

**I don't think I could ever be a novelist. Blast. **

I also have to thank my beta Taffy, for helping me make this the best that it can be. Luv you darling!

He had always been impulsive.

"Aku, I'm going to take you on a trip with me," Zuko told his nephew one afternoon. The boy turned his head up to face him, the sunlight brightening his pale skin.

"Yay!" he cried excitedly, clapping his hands and bouncing from where he sat on the ground. His voice echoed off of the brick walls of the courtyard; it made Zuko feel quite alone, all of the sudden, for reasons he couldn't understand. "We're gonna leave the palace?"

"Yes," he replied, leaning back against the tree behind him and slinging an arm over his knee. "But it's a secret, all right? You can't tell Mommy, and you can't tell any of the servants. Or any of your friends. Can you do that?" Aku nodded eagerly, biting his lip. Zuko smiled, ruffling the boy's jet-black hair. He ducked with a quiet giggle, and Zuko's smile only widened. "I'm going to come tonight, okay? When everyone else is asleep. Otherwise, they won't let me take you."

"Okay!"

He had always been impulsive.

-x-x-

It had been several days since his return from the North Pole. In those few days, he had rarely left Mai. They were almost always together—more often than not, in comfortable silence. Neither of them liked words very much. (He found no point—she had nothing to say. Both of them were content.)

But that night, although Zuko acted as if it was just another night, Mai knew something was wrong. And it was all too familiar.

Perhaps it was just the way he tended to avert his eyes. Maybe how he tried to avoid certain subjects, like Azula, or upcoming events at the palace. Possibly it was how he had barely touched his dinner, how he had held her hand for a little too long, how he had let that kiss linger like he was desperate to make it last—

—either way, she could play along. Even if just for a little while. Even if just to make him think she had noticed nothing at all, just like he wanted her to.

"I was thinking we could go down to the harbor tomorrow," she began casually. They lay reclined on the couch, watching the last of the sun's rays fade behind the mountains. She felt Zuko's hand tighten slightly against hers.

"Yeah, that sounds nice," he replied, resting his cheek on the top of her head.

He said no more about it, and Mai's suspicions only rose.

"How is Aku?"

He shifted slightly on the couch, before responding: "He's doing very well. His tutor says he's a very bright student."

…Except Mai hadn't been asking about his academics.

And he said no more about it.

With a sigh, she leaned into his chest and laced her fingers through his. "Something must be wrong," she said contentedly. (As she had predicted, his entire body tensed.) "I can't possibly be this happy."

She felt him relax underneath her.

Stroking her hair away from her neck, he replied, "Maybe that just means that nothing is wrong."

"Mmm. Maybe."

-x-x-

It had almost been too easy. He had simply eased himself off the bed, changed swiftly into dark clothes, and wrapped a black cloak around himself. Then he had grabbed his pack (hidden underneath the bed), and left through the servant's door. Mai had never stirred.

His face lay in shadow from the darkness of his hood, although it didn't make much of a difference in the pitch black of midnight. He still felt comforted by it. Even if he did meet someone, they wouldn't be able to recognize his scar.

But that wasn't likely anyway. Who would be outside in the middle of the night?

He crept along the wall, intending to make his way to the side street that would take him to the palace—

—and he nearly collided with a woman who was waiting just around the corner, leaning casually against the bricks, looking at him with a hint of resentment and anger in her eyes.

"Mai?" he whispered in astonishment, throwing back his hood. She raised an eyebrow.

"Where are you going, Zuko?" she asked plainly in that flat voice he knew so well.

He also knew it would be useless to lie to her, since she already seemed to know so much.

"To the palace."

"To the palace…" she repeated quietly. "To do what? Pay your sister a nighttime visit?"

He scowled, now on the defensive. "I was going to see Aku."

"Aku. And your nephew will of course be wide awake in the middle of the night, waiting for you."

"I told him to expect me."

"Of course you did. What are you going to do when you get there, Zuko? Play games with the child?"

There was no use in lying.

"I'm going to take him away, Mai. I'm going to take him away from Azula."

He couldn't tell whether she had been waiting for that response or if it had surprised her. Either way, she did not respond for several long moments.

"When were you going to tell me this?" she asked him at last, in a very, very low, dangerous voice.

Zuko ducked his head slightly, the guilt striking him not for the first time. "I wasn't," he said simply. "I thought it would be better if you didn't know. Then when they asked, you wouldn't have to lie."

"Was that the only reason?"

She knew. And she was pushing.

"No," he sighed. "I also thought you would try to stop me."

She remained silent.

"Mai, I'm going to take him," he stated defiantly, looking up at her. "I can't stand around and watch as Azula hurts him and ignores him. I won't leave him there."

She stepped out from the shadows of the house, walking forward until their faces were inches away. "But you were going to leave me," she said flatly. "You were going to leave me to wander the palace, a wife whose husband left her to kidnap the crown prince, someone who will always be whispered about, always be pitied."

"I thought you would be happier," he protested, although even she could see that he was beginning to sag. "I thought it would be better."

"You said that the last time you left me," she replied bitterly. "You said you didn't want to hurt me."

"And I _don't_."

"Then why won't you bring me with you? Why won't you tell me that you're leaving?" Her voice had taken on a faint plaintive, pleading tone, one that made his heart ache. It wasn't that evident—anyone who didn't know her wouldn't have heard the change in her voice. To them, it would have seemed as flat as ever. But Zuko heard it. And Agni, it hurt him.

She didn't wait for a reply, instead taking his face in her hands and looking him in the eye. "I'm going with you, Zuko, whether you want me to or not. You aren't leaving me again, not this time."

-x-x-

_Two days later…_

"Hi."

Mai looked around, her gaze finally falling on the small boy standing beside her. He was looking up at her with wide golden eyes, his head tilted to one side.

"Hi," she replied blankly.

"What's your name?"

"Mai."

"May…May…like the month?"

"Yes."

"That's pretty. I like May. May is nice."

Mai didn't respond. She hadn't talked to Aku at all since they had left the capital. Zuko had carried him from the palace to the harbor, and from the docks to the ship. Zuko was the one who made sure he had enough to eat, Zuko was the one who made sure the boy didn't stray too far. Mai had just lingered off to the side, watching, occasionally wondering why she had wanted to go so badly.

Then Zuko would leave his nephew to stand with her at the ship's railing, and all those worries would be forgotten.

"Are you my aunt?"

"…I think so." After all, Zuko was his uncle by blood. She was married to Zuko. So _technically…_

"Good. I hoped so."

Then, out of nowhere, with no warning at all, he took her hand in his and turned so that he was watching the ocean with her. She glanced down in surprise; sensing her gaze on him, he looked up and smiled. "Auntie Mai, where are we going? Uncle Zuko wouldn't say."

She flinched inwardly at being called 'Auntie Mai'.

"We're going to the Earth Kingdom," she said. "To Lingsi."

"Lingsi? What's that?"

"It's the new capitol of the 'Free Earth Kingdom'."

"I thought Ba Seng See was the capitol."

"Ba Sing Se. It was." _Technically it still is,_ she thought to herself. But she didn't say it aloud; even she knew it was better not to confuse a child.

After Ba Sing Se fell to the Fire Nation, it was no longer a safe haven for refugees. A city in the southeastern region of the continent was chosen as the capitol for the 'Free Earth Kingdom'. It became the new destination for all Earth Kingdom citizens trying to escape the Fire Nation, and it housed several legions of earthbenders who protected them. They had been gathering most of the earthbenders in the nation for quite some time, and now held the most powerful bending army in the world—aside from the Fire Nation. Lingsi was considered to be the last sanctuary of the Earth Kingdom.

"Why isn't it anymore?"

Mai took her hand from his, leaning her forearms on the railing and looking out to sea. "Because now it belongs to the Fire Nation," she said quietly.

"Oh."

It was shocking how much he seemed to understand.

"Auntie Mai," she flinched again, "can you firebend?"

"No."

"But Uncle Zuko said you were a really good fighter."

She turned to him, the beginnings of a smile tugging at her mouth. "Did he, now? I suppose he was talking about this—"

She swiftly withdrew a stiletto from her sleeve, pitching it at the nearby wall. It struck the metal with a _clang_, piercing it in the exact center of a small dent. Aku's eyes grew extraordinarily wide.

"_Wow_," he breathed. "That's so awesome!"

Mai smirked. "Took me a while to figure out how to do it," she said, walking over to pluck the knife from the iron wall. "But if you have a teacher, I suppose you can learn it pretty fast."

"Can you teach me, Auntie Mai?"

This time, the name seemed so natural, she didn't flinch at all.

"Of course. You don't need firebending to be able to kick ass."

"Yeah!"

Zuko was going to kill her.


	4. Old Friends

"We'll reach the coast tomorrow."

"Yes, I heard the sailors talking."

She didn't look up from the clothes she was folding. The small room rocked gently with the waves; they barely noticed it anymore. Aku was sleeping soundly in a small bed in the corner, snuggled into his blankets. The sea air had gotten colder as they had moved farther and farther away from the Fire Nation. Mai had noticed its toll on both Zuko and Aku—they had both grown a bit more introspective, a bit less contented. She found it strange that she wasn't affected at all.

Her first suspicion had been the firebending, but since Aku could no longer firebend, the idea was immediately dismissed—and not without a small shadow of doubt.

Zuko cast a glance over at the sleeping boy, and extinguished one of the three hanging lanterns in the chamber. At the sudden loss of light, Mai stopped folding clothes and plopped unceremoniously on to the bed.

"What are we going to do, Zuko?" she asked, after a pause.

He hesitated, then lay down next to her and closed his eyes. "I have a vague idea. We can make it."

"You're extremely recognizable."

"I have an idea for that too."

"Our Fire Nation clothes?"

"Easily remedied."

"We're on a ship full of Fire Nation citizens."

"They just think we're on vacation. Word of Aku's kidnapping hasn't reached them yet, we left before it could."

"The news might have reached the coast."

A sharp sigh escaped him, and he propped himself up on an elbow. "Dammit Mai, you have to trust me."

She turned to face him, her expression unreadable to anyone but him. "I do," she said quietly.

Zuko extinguished the remaining lights, and they both got into bed.

"Aku likes you, you know," she heard him whisper as he moved closer.

"I know."

He gently rested his arm over her waist. When he spoke, his breath brushed the back of her neck. "He told me you're teaching him how to use knives."

"I thought it would be a good idea to teach him how to defend himself…"

_Without firebending_ went unsaid.

"I agree. It's a very good idea. Is he learning?"

"Extremely quickly. Faster than I did."

"You didn't have a teacher."

"True. But he is very bright."

Zuko made a noise of assent in the back of his throat, and rested his forehead between her shoulder blades. She laid her hand over his.

"Do you know what he told me the other day?" he said.

"What?"

"He told me he knows why I married you. Because—and this is exactly what he said—'she's beautiful and smart and very nice, and that's the kinda girl you should marry.'"

Mai had to cover her mouth to keep from making a sound, but her shoulders still shook with contained laughter. Zuko chuckled softly behind her.

"The boy's learning quickly."

-x-x-

_Thirteen days later…_

Zuko had been astonished when Mai asked to carry Aku. (He had, of course, obliged—he may have cared very much for his nephew, but that didn't make the boy feel any lighter in his arms.) Aku had taken to her very well, talking to her animatedly about everything that was going on around them, no matter where they were.

Leaving the colony port was almost too easy. They purchased new clothes, two ostrich-horses, some food supplies, and they were on their way. They traveled with a caravan out of the port; Zuko was careful to keep his face hidden in the shadows of his hood. Then they had slipped away from the caravan after a few nights and ridden off through the wilderness towards Lingsi. That part of the journey was so successful, any doubts that Mai had faded very quickly.

Aku rode with him now, in front of his seat, chatting with the ostrich-horse (whom he had affectionately named 'Pli').

"You have weird fur," he told the animal bluntly, stroking its neck. "It's feathery and fuzzy and green. Do other animals make fun of you? I don't suppose so, since you can't speak other animals' language, right? Can they make fun of you in another language? Oh, wait…you wouldn't know, 'cause you can't understand it…"

"What did you ask that guard?" Mai asked Zuko, moving her ostrich-horse closer so that they could speak over Aku's one-sided dialogue. "Back there, when you wanted to speak with him alone?"

"The Lingsi border guard? I just wanted to know if he knew my friend."

"Your friend?"

"The one we're going to visit."

"Why are we going to visit him?"

"Because I won't feel safe with anyone else, and we can't stay with the rest of the refugees. They'd reject us immediately if they knew who we were—and we can't afford being forsaken by the people who have the power to return us to the Fire Nation."

Mai fell silent, then she heard him mutter: "Although I'm not quite sure _she_ won't reject us, now that I think of it…shit."

He had that determined look on his face again, the one Mai instantly recognized. Usually it meant he had just made a decision that he hadn't wanted to make.

"Let me guess—you don't want to, but we have no choice."

"I don't know what else to do," he replied quietly. "We need to be here to be protected, but I'm not sure mixing in with the refugees is the right thing to do."

"It might make us impossible to find."

Zuko glanced away. "Maybe…"

In truth, Zuko's conscience was killing him. There was someone he needed to see, someone he needed to apologize to. He had been given forgiveness before—perhaps this old friend would be able to do it again.

Doubt clawed at his mind, but he pressed forward. Guilt was driving him on.

-x-x-

"Why are we stopping here?"

"Because if we go any closer, we can't turn back. And this might be a big mistake."

Mai raised an eyebrow. "So…you're rethinking this?"

"That's one way of putting it."

"And you can't do it at the front door?"

"We probably won't even get to the front door."

She opened her mouth furiously to demand exactly what he meant, but he had already spurred his mount on, and she had nothing to do but follow.

It didn't take long for her to realize exactly what he was talking about.

After only a few steps, a wall of earth shot straight for them. Both ostrich-horses shied violently, skirting to the side and rearing their heads. Aku screamed, Zuko fought to keep control, and Mai lost her balance and fell to the ground.

Another one came right after the first, from a different direction. This time Aku tumbled from the saddle, and Mai's mount leapt over the first wall and escaped. Zuko tried to calm his mount enough so that he could get off—

A third wall came from behind them, and not even Zuko could stay on. His ride fled the scene just before a fourth wall rose, boxing them in.

Mai was already standing and ready, a total of 12 knives in her hands. Aku had taken out his own, personal knife bravely, but he hobbled over to hide behind Zuko's legs.

"YOU BASTARD!"

Zuko slowly closed his eyes. Yes, this had been a mistake.

In a flash, a section of the front wall dropped, and in walked a black-haired young woman, her face twisted with absolute fury.

"Toph," he began, but she didn't give him a chance to finish.

"How _dare_ you!" she screamed, pointing a finger at him. He could feel the earth shaking beneath his feet, and Aku clenched the fabric of his pants tighter. "You heartless a—"

"Mai DON'T!" Zuko roared. Mai's arm froze just in time, her knife dangling on the edge of her fingertips. "Wait," he told her breathlessly. "Wait."

"Oh, so you think calling off your homicidal girlfriend is gonna warm me up?" Toph bellowed. "_No chance!_"

Just as she raised a hand to earthbend (and do something that would probably be excruciatingly painful for all three of them…or perhaps just Zuko), a voice called out: "Toph! Toph, what are you doing?"

She whirled. "Stay back!"

An exceptionally tall young man—although older than her—approached at a run, followed swiftly by an older boy in a wheelchair. The first man was taller than Zuko, with long brown hair that fell to his shoulders and a small mustache. The boy in the wheelchair looked very young, although his height and voice (for he had been the one to call out) suggested he was around Toph's age.

Both pairs of eyes widened at the sight of Zuko. "You!" they both cried at exactly the same time—which may have been funny, under different circumstances.

"Please listen to me," he pleaded, getting down on his knees and pushing Aku behind him. Mai was glaring at them all, stilettos still poised. "Please—"

"No," Toph snarled, raising a hand again—

The tall man gripped her wrist firmly. "Toph," he chided, looking down at her. "Hold on a second."

"Why?" the boy in the wheelchair asked angrily. "We know it's him."

"But we don't know why he's here, and why he hasn't brought the Fire Nation with him."

"They all bring the Fire Nation," Toph breathed, her body still tense. "Everywhere they go."

"I didn't bring it here," Zuko assured her. "I swear I didn't. I left them far behind when I kidnapped the prince."

Mai was torn as to whether that had been a brilliant or stupid move on Zuko's part. It certainly silenced everyone. Not a word was said for several long, drawn-out moments. All three of their captors were simply staring at her husband blankly, astonishment plain on their faces.

"They won't let me back," Zuko said at last. "I committed a capital crime. I'll be executed if they find me. And even if they weren't going to kill me, I wouldn't go back anyway."

"The life of a king not suiting you, Hotman?" Toph snarled. The nickname had its desired effect—Zuko flinched, for reasons unbeknownst only to Mai and Aku.

_He watched the boy's corpse in the pouring rain, still poised to attack in case the Avatar suddenly stood up. But he knew he wouldn't. There was no mistake this time, not like at Ba Sing Se. He had aimed for the heart—and he had struck home._

"No. It wasn't suiting me at all," he said quietly. "That's why I left. And I took Mai and Aku with me."

Toph's gaze never turned from Zuko's face, but her furious expression dropped immediately. Zuko supposed she had just 'seen' his nephew, cowering behind his uncle. "Is he Azula's?" she asked, and it was evident she was struggling to keep her voice level.

"Yes."

There was a slight pause, then: "What kind of man would—ow!" The boy in the wheelchair rubbed his arm where the other man had smacked him.

"Not in front of the child," he growled. Mai glanced at Aku, watched his golden eyes flick back and forth between the two strangers in front of him, watched his eyebrows furrow in confusion and his hands take a tighter, more desperate hold on Zuko's arm. She felt her heart sink.

"We need a place to stay," Zuko said quietly.

"That's obvious," Toph snorted, folding her arms across her chest. Evidently, the sight of Aku had made her anger fade somewhat. The gaze in which she held Zuko, however, was still filled with absolutely nothing but contempt.

"We humbly request asylum, if you'll give it to us."

"We grant your request."

Toph turned to her companions, now completely ignoring Zuko, Mai, and Aku. "Haru," she said flatly, a hint of a snarl in her tone. "No. Absolutely not. How could you possibly even _think_ about that?"

_Ah yes, that was his name,_ Zuko thought. He had wondered why the man had looked so familiar.

Haru rubbed the back of his neck. "If they were really against us, they would have targeted the city. They would have brought at least _some_ backup with them. Right now, it just looks like Zuko made another one of his ridiculously short-sighted decisions that you're always telling us about."

Mai snorted quietly in the corner.

"I really don't see why we shouldn't give them a place to stay."

"I can think of a few good reasons," Toph began, spreading her feet and shoving her hands on her hips. But before she could say anything else, the boy in the wheelchair (Zuko struggled to remember his name) spoke up:

"He has a child."

Toph closed her mouth. Haru glanced down at him.

"Teo has a point. If it were dangerous, he wouldn't have brought the child. Logically, I mean."

"You don't know him," Toph hissed angrily. "You don't know what he's capable of. He's murdered a child before."

"We know, Toph," Haru said in a quiet voice. "We all know."

Aku gasped softly, clinging to Zuko even tighter. "She's lying," he whispered. He sounded as if he were desperate for someone to tell him he was right.

Toph whirled, that angry spark lighting her pale eyes once more—

"Please," Zuko pleaded, suddenly frantic. "Toph, don't say a word. I beg of you. I'll do anything."

"Toph," Teo said in a warning tone.

"Let's go inside," Haru announced suddenly with the air of someone who strongly desired a change in subject. "Zuko, you and your family are welcome here."

Toph looked like she was about to explode, but Teo and Haru quickly herded their three 'guests' out of the rock enclosure before she could get a word in edgewise.

"We'll pay for this later," Teo whispered loudly to Haru as the group moved slowly towards the house. The corners of Haru's mouth quirked.

"I know."


	5. Real Family

The house was simple. It was a single-floor cottage made completely of stone, with stone counters, stone beds, and a bit of stone furniture. Nothing was embellished or decorated lavishly, nothing was intricately designed. Everything was practical and plain.

_Typical earthbenders_, Mai thought with a touch of scorn as she entered the cottage. _They actually _like_ this sort of thing_.

"It's not much," Haru said, clasping his hands behind his back and leading them all in, "but it's been our home for the past three years."

"We love it," Teo added. As he said it, he looked directly at Mai. She looked away, infinitely glad that she wasn't the sort to blush easily. It was almost as if he could read her like an open book—were her thoughts that plain on her face?

"Did you make it all yourself?" Zuko asked when he walked in. Aku, his arms around his uncle's neck, looked around with interest. Haru nodded.

"Me and Toph spent a day building the place, with the inner dividing walls and all that, then we just built the furniture as we needed it. It was much easier for us than it would be for a non-bender."

"How do you earthbend?" Aku asked Teo. Teo glanced down at his wrapped legs, resting at the point of his triangular wheelchair, and smiled quietly.

"I don't," he said simply. "Haru and Toph are the earthbenders."

"So you're the only one who doesn't earthbend?"

"It doesn't matter," Toph said shortly, finally making her entrance and shutting the door behind her. She immediately moved to Teo and placed her hands on the back of his wheelchair. She gave Zuko the impression of a mother bear protecting her cub. "He's a part of our family."

"You're all a family?" Aku asked, his eyes widening slightly.

"Yes…"

"Oh. Your family is like ours." His gaze turned to his uncle's collar, and he toyed with it distractedly. "Not completely real."

Zuko frowned, turning to his nephew—but Mai plucked the child out of his arms and turned to Toph. "Miss Toph," she said respectfully. "Where should we put our things?"

"You can sleep in the guest room," Haru replied. "It's in the back. Not very spacious…but it'll have to do."

"It'll be fine."

-x-x-

"Only here for a few hours, and they've already taken over my kitchen," Toph grumbled, leaning back in a stone armchair and folding her arms. From there she could see into the other room, where Mai was kneading flour and Zuko was chopping vegetables. Aku sat on the floor behind them, playing with little wooden figurines that Teo had found in some storage closet.

Haru glanced over at her. "They offered to cook. It was very generous of them. And I think you're being a little close-minded on this matter."

She sighed, looking weary. "I can't trust him, Haru," she said quietly. "I just can't. Not after what he did. We gave him our trust before, remember? When he came to us begging for forgiveness. Then he betrayed us. And now it's the same story all over again."

"You don't know that." Their conversation had suddenly gotten much quieter.

"Neither do you." She turned to face him. It seemed like no matter how long he'd known her, her clouded gaze had never ceased to disturb him when she looked him right in the eye. "We didn't know, back at the Western Air Temple. We didn't know whether or not he was going to betray us. And he did. Now, we still don't know. And he might betray us yet again."

Haru looked down at his hands. "He gave us our fathers."

"You don't know _that_, either," Toph said exasperatedly, throwing her hands up in the air.

"They said it was the Blue Spirit who freed those war prisoners."

"Rumors."

"Aang told us Zuko had rescued him as the Blue Spirit."

"Only so he could capture him again!"

"That's not the point."

"Then I don't understand the point."

Haru slammed the ground with his foot—his stone chair slid noisily across the floor to arrive right in front of hers. "Toph," he said firmly, staring at her. "We need to give him this chance. For the child's sake if not for his. And you can sense if he's lying, can't you? Ask him questions. Go see for yourself."

With a kick of his foot and a twist of his ankle, his chair slid back across the room. He stood up abruptly, and walked out the front door to join Teo.

Toph sighed, leaning her head back and closing her eyes. It was all so complicated…

Suddenly, Aku was peering into the living room, watching her. She could feel it.

"Your name is Toph."

She opened her eyes. "Yes it is."

The boy stood unsteadily, and made his way towards her. (That horrible limp: no wonder Zuko was carrying him everywhere.) He stopped several feet away, and leaned close to her face.

He simply stared.

"What?" she asked, frowning.

"Your eyes."

"What about them?"

"I've never seen that color before."

"No, probably not."

"They're the color of clouds."

Toph blinked. "…Clouds?"

Aku nodded. "I like them. They're pretty."

She opened her mouth, then closed it again. "Thank you," she said, after a few breaths. Aku simply nodded, a small smile tugging at his mouth, and tottered away.

Toph watched him go.

"Azula did that to him."

She leapt to her feet and whirled, shocked to find Zuko sitting on the windowsill behind her chair. "How did you get there?" she demanded.

"I walked around from the kitchen," he replied simply. Although her house was rectangular, the doors from room to room all led in a circle. He had simply gone the other way around.

"Well, don't surprise me like that," Toph commanded after she had recovered herself. It irritated her that she hadn't been able to sense his approach. What had gotten her so distracted?

Oh. That's right. The child's limp, Azula…

"How did it happen?" she asked softly, although her tone still held a little bit of a dangerous quality.

"He messed up on a training exercise," Zuko responded sadly. "Then he defied her. She used her lightning—and told him it had been an accident."

Toph felt her heart beating in her chest all-too-loudly. "She told him it was an accident?" she repeated incredulously. He nodded. She searched out Aku's steps in the kitchen, feeling for them again—he could barely use that left leg, and it often dragged along the ground behind him when he didn't lift it.

"So you took him away."

"So I took him away."

-x-x-

"This is really good, Mai," Haru said politely. Teo and Toph had too much food in their mouths to say anything.

Mai bowed her head. "Thank you, Haku," she said.

Teo choked with what Zuko supposed was contained laughter.

A smile came over Haru's face. "Haru," he corrected kindly. Mai smiled—just a little bit.

"Haru. I apologize."

"Apology accepted."

They ate in contented silence for a while, enjoying the first bit of peace they had encountered since Zuko's arrival. (_And the food _is_ good,_ the three Earth Kingdom citizens thought.)

"Where did you learn to cook?" Teo asked Mai after a while.

"My aunt," she replied. "She thought I should know how to fend for myself when I 'no longer had a servant for every purpose and every task'."

"Do you have all those servants?" Aku asked eagerly. Mai smiled affectionately.

"No, Aku, I do not."

There was more silence.

"It surprises me that you haven't asked about the rest of our gang," Toph said suddenly without looking at Zuko; still, it was blatantly clear to whom she was speaking.

Zuko didn't look up either, instead choosing to pick at the contents of his plate with his fork. "I knew where most of them were," he said.

Toph's spoon clattered to the table.

"How?" she challenged. Zuko glanced up, then looked down again.

"Well," he began, clearly uncomfortable. "Katara's in the Fire Nation."

Mai raised an eyebrow. "How do you know that?"

"Because the Painted Lady has cost Azula thousands in destroyed factories and war supplies."

"What about Sokka?" Toph asked, and Zuko sensed a certain amount of desperation in her voice. "Where is he?"

"At the North Pole," he replied without thinking.

This silence was nowhere near as comfortable as the last.

Toph stood up slowly, as Haru and Teo stared incredulously at Zuko. Mai felt her breath catch in her throat, and she looked down at her hands in her lap. _Stupid, Zuko, stupid…_

"It was you," Toph breathed. "You conquered the North Pole."

"Toph—" Haru began.

"Did you kill him?" she demanded dangerously, slamming her hands down on the table. "_Did you kill him?_"

"No!" Zuko protested. "No, I would never—!" But he broke off. Mai closed her eyes, taking Aku's hand and clasping it in her own. The poor boy was glancing back and forth between Zuko and Toph, clearly uncomprehending.

"You would never what?" she asked; she sounded close to tears now. "You would never kill him? You would never kill a friend? Is that what you were about to say?"

Zuko was shaking his head, burying his face in his hands. Haru started to stand, but Toph pushed him back down without even a glance.

"Did you kill him?" she asked for the third time.

"No," Zuko whispered into his hands.

"Where is he?"

"He's being held at the North Pole until they can build another waterbender prison."

"Where is Suki?"

"I don't know."

His chair suddenly leapt from the ground, throwing him to the floor. He landed hard, and his breath escaped him in an instant. Coughing, he struggled to get to his feet.

"You have to know, dammit!" Toph shouted. "She was there! They were married at the Oasis! They would have stayed together!"

"Not if he wanted her to leave!" he shot back.

"And why would she leave?" she yelled. "She always refused to leave a fight!"

Zuko looked down. "Then she must have had a reason for leaving. Something Sokka could use to persuade her."

No more words were spoken, but everyone—save Aku—understood instantly. Toph fell back into her seat.

"She was pregnant," she whispered.

"Toph, I'm sorry," Zuko began. "I know you—"

But she was gone; fled from the room with her chair overturned.

"She always did like him, didn't she?" Teo said sadly. Haru patted his shoulder.

"That's ridiculous," Mai said softly. "Shouldn't she have realized, after they were married, that he was no longer a choice for her?"

"Maybe she still hoped," Zuko said, getting up from the floor and righting his chair. "Maybe she thought he would eventually come to her."

"Or maybe she just wanted to dream," Aku piped up quietly. "Even if it isn't possible really, it's possible in a dream."

"Not if he had a child with Suki," Haru whispered.

Zuko sat down, burying his face in his arms. "She's never going to forgive me, is she?"

Mai cast sidelong glances at Teo and Haru—both of them looked genuinely sympathetic.

"She'll come around," Teo said. "She always does."

"It's just been hard, since Aang died," Haru said. "She's been struggling."

"How did you guys end up together?" Zuko asked, raising his head. Teo shrugged.

"Simple. We were the ones left over. Aang died, Katara just got up and left, Sokka and Suki went off together, Chit Sang and The Duke stayed with some refugees in a town off the eastern coast, and you got an exclusive ride to the Fire Nation. We all decided that we, as the leftovers, should stick together. Then we heard of the project Lingsi (since it was only an 'idea' then) and we chose to go and help. Toph and Haru have been part of the earthbending army since the beginning."

Zuko looked over at Haru. "Army any good?" Haru raised an eyebrow, making Zuko chuckle. "I almost forgot how foreign I am here. Forgive me, I didn't mean to pry." Haru smiled.

"Perfectly fine. We actually have nothing to hide—our army is exceptional. We go for training every week. With all the earthbenders we have, defending our city is easy. We just haven't come across any Fire Nation yet."

"But we know it's inevitable," Teo added somberly. "So we're waiting for that day. My father's been working in the city for almost the entire time he's been here, and he's invented some pretty exceptional stuff."

"My father's been made a commander," Haru said with a touch of pride.

"And you're a general," Teo put in, grinning. "Must run in the family."

"So you do have families," Aku said. "Why did Toph say that this was your family?"

Teo tilted his head. "Because it is," he replied. "My father will always be precious to me, as I'm sure Haru's father is to him. But Haru, Toph and me—we're really close. We live with each other, we care for each other, we help each other." A slow smile came over his face. "And that's what a real family is, right?"

Aku looked at him for a moment, then looked at Zuko and Mai. "So we _are_ a real family," he told his uncle. "I thought it wasn't real, 'cause you aren't my daddy and you—" he turned to Mai "—aren't my mommy."

"It's real, Aku, don't you worry," Haru said brightly, taking Teo's plate and finishing it off over the younger man's protest. His next words were said around a mouthful of pasta and vegetables: "It's real."


	6. Pretending and Love

Thok

_Thok. Thok. Thok._

"He's good."

Zuko turned at the sound of her voice, finding her standing above him, leaning against the same tree he was. He folded his arms, turning his gaze back to his nephew.

"Yes. Mai's a good teacher. And I think she likes having a student, although she'd never admit it."

_Thok_. The blade struck the center of the target, quivering.

"Seems to me like she'd never admit to anything."

"Mai's like that."

_Thok._ Another knife, right beside the first one. They could both hear Aku's cheers.

"But you love her for it, I assume."

"Of course."

_Thok_.

"He's started calling me Auntie Toph, you know."

"Really?" He turned to look up at her. "I approve. You've been very kind to him, and he likes you."

She bristled, but more out of habit than anything else. "Don't need your approval, Sparky. And I like him too."

Zuko had grown accustomed to her biting remarks, so he just smiled quietly and watched. Mai stood behind Aku, her black hair beginning to fall out of its bun and blowing in the breeze. Aku had pouches of knives at his belt, and was throwing them one by one at several targets set up a few yards away at the treeline. Mai looked pleased, but not so anyone but Zuko and Aku (who had become quite good at reading her) would notice.

Aku raised a knife, prepared to throw—then Mai took him by the wrist, corrected the placement of the blade between his fingers, and let him go.

_Thok_. Bull's-eye.

"Haru says I should try to forgive you."

The words were so quiet, Zuko wasn't even sure he had heard her correctly. He kept his gaze firmly fixed on Mai and replied: "Did he? I'm surprised he's the forgiving type."

"The army has changed him, I think," she said, sitting down next to Zuko. It was the closest she had gotten to him since his arrival a week prior. "Now that he's got an outlet for his anger against the Fire Nation, he's a lot more peaceful in other respects. He isn't the Haru I knew."

"And you don't like it?"

She was silent for a moment. The breeze washed over them both, rustling the leaves above their heads. The silence could almost be called companionable: Zuko waiting politely; Toph thinking deeply, for once her anger not directed at him.

"Sometimes I felt like we were kindred spirits," she said with a sigh. "We were so much alike. Now, with him so calm and…and _normal_…it makes me feel like I'm _not_ normal."

"You aren't."

"Thanks, Sparky. Thanks a lot."

Her sarcasm made him smile. "Since when have you cared about what people think about you?"

She pounded the ground angrily, a scowl appearing on her face. (Zuko felt the ground tremble beneath him.) "Since I became an icon for those mindless _refugees_."

_Thok_. "You know, most people would like being an icon."

"It's the pressure that kills me," she grumbled. "The generals all look to me for help, but I know nothing about war—just fighting. The refugees all think I should be president of Lingsi because I was a friend of the Avatar, but I know nothing about politics—just earth. It seems like they expect more of me than I can give."

He watched her, sifting dirt through her fingers, staring sightlessly at Mai's thin figure, graceful movements and her faint, proud smile.

_Thok_.

"Even Haru," she continued. "I thought I might be free from that pressure at home, but he's always telling me things…Telling me how I shouldn't be so angry, how I should control my temper, how I should handle this person and that person…how I should forgive _you_." Toph leaned back, letting her head strike the wood of the tree behind her. Zuko didn't even see her wince. "It reminds me of living with my parents. Expectations, limits, pressure…There was a reason I left with the Avatar."

"I know," Zuko said quietly. "You always feel like pretending is the only way you'll satisfy them."

"Yeah," she said, her voice just as soft. There was a moment's pause, then: "Pretending sucks."

He chuckled—that was the Toph he knew. "Yes it does."

_Thokthokthok. _Three, in quick succession, all striking the center of the target. Aku cheered and threw his arms around Mai; Zuko applauded with pride while Toph whooped loudly beside him, laughing.

-x-x-

"They love each other, don't they?"

Haru glanced up at Aku in surprise, then turned to follow the young boy's gaze. Out the window, Zuko and Mai were walking by the edge of the forest, holding hands. Mai was leaning into Zuko's shoulder, and Zuko was speaking quietly to her.

"Yes," Haru replied. "They love each other very much."

Aku nodded, toying with the white linen curtains surrounding the window that billowed in the breeze. "That's what I thought." There was a moment of silence, then: "Do you love someone, Haru?"

The earthbender started, fumbling with the large pebble he had been holding in his hands—and shaping. "Why do you ask?" he inquired, regaining his grip on the rock.

Aku shrugged. "I just wanna know. Do you?"

Haru opened his mouth—then closed it again. "I did love someone once," he said at last. "She was a girl I met in the Fire Nation when I was still with the Avatar."

"I thought you hated the Fire Nation," Aku said innocently. Haru looked up with a kind smile.

"I did. I still do, a little bit. But she was very pretty, and very kind."

"What was her name?"

"Iza," he answered with a sigh. "She owned the inn where we stayed for a few days."

"What did she look like?"

Haru chuckled, leaning back on his hands, the pebble quite forgotten. "You're a curious little boy, aren't you?" Aku nodded happily, making Haru laugh again. "All right, all right…she had straight black hair. She always put it up in a bun in the morning, but by the time she finished working the tables and the reception desk in the inn, some of her hair fell down to frame her face. She had a very pretty face…eyes the color of a sunset."

Aku tilted his head to one side. "Why didn't you marry her?"

"Because marriage doesn't work like that," Haru replied sadly. "It would have been very hard for me to marry her."

"Why?"

"She was a Fire Nation citizen. I was with the Avatar, working to bring down her Fire Lord. If she knew who I was, what I was doing in her country…" He trailed off, his gaze turning to the window, where Mai and Zuko were still visible in the distance. Aku regarded Haru with sadness for a few moments, then said, simply:

"Oh."

Haru sat up and began shaping the large pebble again with his earthbending. If he did it right, it would turn out to be a nice long blade, for a glaive of some sort or a spear. Hopefully it would someday adorn the weapon of a non-bending citizen.

Then, without warning, Aku continued with his questions. "Does Toph love somebody?" he asked.

"Toph is very hard to read," Haru replied without looking up, his fingers pressing against the rock in different places. "I know she loved Sokka when we were with him and the Avatar."

"The one at the North Pole. With the wife and child."

"Yes. That one. I don't think she's loved anyone since, but like I said: it's hard to tell, with her."

"Like Mai."

He glanced up. "What do you mean?"

"You can't really tell what she's thinking sometimes. You have to know her real good."

"Yes, that sounds about right." He looked down at his rock again, then added: "She wasn't always like that. She used to be very open with us—with all of us. We always knew what she was thinking, because she would tell us. Now…with Aang gone…she's a little more closed off."

"She's hurting," Aku pointed out. Haru nodded.

"Aang was a very good friend of hers. I'd say she's hurting a lot. All of us are."

"I'm sorry."

"It's all right."

Aku pulled on the ends of the curtain he was holding, swinging it around for a while. Then: "How did he die?"

Haru froze. _Uh-oh_. There had to be a good way to answer this. Obviously, he couldn't tell him the truth: at least not the whole truth. Zuko would be devastated—_Aku_ would be devastated. Haru didn't even know if Aku would believe him if he told the real story. _Most likely not,_ he reasoned. The child worshipped his uncle. It seemed to have a good effect on Zuko, having someone admire him. In Haru's opinion, it brought out the best in the scarred prince.

"It's a very long story," Haru began slowly. "And a bad one. Aang had a friend—he was a friend to all of us, really. All of us in the gang." Aku gripped the curtain, leaning forward; he was visibly hanging on to every word. "Then, when it came time to face the Fire Lord, Aang succeeded. He killed Ozai. And right after he did it, right after he dealt the fatal blow—our friend killed Aang."

Aku gasped. "Why?" he demanded. "Why would he do that if he's your friend?"

"Someone had promised him," Haru replied, "that if he killed the Avatar, he would regain his royalty: the royalty that had been taken away from him. That someone was very evil, and very persuasive…and our friend fell for her tricks." He paused for a moment, then continued, in a softer voice: "But…I think he's sorry. I think he's very, very sorry. It's hurting him too, you know, to know that he killed a friend. To know that he made a very, very big mistake."

"Very, very, _very_ big."

"But people make mistakes," Haru said, looking up at him. "You've made mistakes before, haven't you? When you accidentally say something to hurt a friend?" Aku nodded. "Well, it's kind of the same thing. You don't mean to hurt them, and you don't want to hurt them, and you always regret it after you do it. So I think our friend is sorry he killed Aang, and I—for one—forgive him."

"Did he get his royalty back?" Aku asked earnestly, eyes wide.

He sighed. "Yes. He got what he was promised."

Aku sank back to his original sitting position, still gripping the curtain in both hands, crumpling the fabric. "It's still sad," he said quietly. "Even if he is sorry." Haru looked down.

"Very sad. That's why we're hurting—all of us." Aku nodded in understanding, looking back out the window to where Mai and Zuko were returning. Mai had a faint smile on her face, as did Zuko, and they now had their arms around each other as they walked.

"Does Teo love anybody?" Aku asked suddenly. Haru's mouth quirked in a small smile.

"Do you promise to keep a secret?" he asked the small prince, looking up at him through his lashes. Aku grinned.

"Yeah."

-x-x-

Something was missing—that's what woke Teo up. He wasn't quite sure what that 'something' was, at first. It was dark; the crickets outside were chirping loudly beneath the rustling of leaves in the forest, and the air was almost cold. Teo took a blanket from beside his pallet and wrapped it around his shoulders before hoisting himself up into his wheelchair. He had remembered what was missing.

Her breathing.

He wheeled silently into the living room, finding her exactly where he had expected to—hunched over on a stool in front of the fire, staring into the flames. But as silent as he was, she felt him move even before he had gotten out of bed.

"Shouldn't you be asleep?" she whispered irritably.

"I could ask you the same question," he replied as he approached, completely unfazed by her tone. "It's late. Almost morning, I'd say."

"Yeah well…"

He rolled up next to her, peering at her face. Flickering in the firelight, it was impossible to read. "Toph, is something wrong?" he asked quietly. She bristled, hunching over even more. Her reply was brusque.

"I just couldn't sleep, that's all."

"Last time you said that, you had been having nightmares about Aang's death."

She sighed, and all the fight seemed to drain from her with it. "I don't really want to talk about it, Teo," she whispered. Teo watched her for a moment, watched her stare into the fire without seeing it, watched the pain flicker behind her pale eyes like the fire itself—

But he didn't say a word. Instead, he took the blanket from around his shoulders and draped it over hers. She accepted it without a word, brushing his fingers with hers as she did so. "Thanks, Three-Wheels," she said. He just smiled shyly.

"You're welcome, Bigfoot."

They sat in a comfortable silence for a few minutes, calmly watching as the flames slowly sank and withered.

"You didn't ask," Toph said suddenly. Teo glanced at her.

"I didn't ask what?"

"You didn't ask why I couldn't sleep."

"You said you didn't really want to talk about it."

"I know, I'm just…surprised. That you didn't ask anyway."

"I figured I wouldn't get an answer out of you if I asked anyway," he said with a chuckle. She gave a half-hearted laugh of her own, although it seemed sincere.

"True."

Any other man would have asked at that moment. Any other man would have demanded to know, begged her to tell him—

But Teo knew exactly how to get answers out of Toph. So he stayed pleasantly mute, and waited.

He didn't have to wait long.

"It was Sokka," she burst out softly. "I had a nightmare about him."

Teo rested a hand on her shoulder. "Was it bad?" he asked, purposefully avoiding any direct question such as 'What was it about?' He had been around Toph long enough to know that those kind of questions only made her pull away.

She nodded. "I think…I think he was drowning," she said uncertainly. "He was beneath the ice, and I was on top of it. He was shouting something at me—something I couldn't hear. Suki was there with a baby…she was crying. I tried to shout to her, to get off the ice, but she wouldn't listen to me. She just…sat there, sobbing." Her voice broke, and when she continued, she sounded choked. "I think…I think I was crying too. I knew he was going to die, I just _knew_ it. But I couldn't do anything. I was pounding on the ice, shouting for help…"

Teo remained silent, although he thought he heard his own heart cracking in his chest. She still cared for Sokka—she still loved him. Even after he was married to Suki, even after he had a child with her…

Then again, Toph had never been one to give up easily.

Beside him, she was rubbing her eyes furiously, audibly restraining sobs. "Then he was just…gone. He sank, and I couldn't see him anymore. Then Suki was gone too, and I was alone on the ice…I was shouting and screaming for someone to hear me…"

He made an instant decision—it didn't matter if she still loved the water tribe boy. He wasn't here now, was he? No. Teo was here, and Toph was crying in front of _him_, not Sokka.

Teo gently pulled her towards him, and she rested her cheek on his chest. "I'm not crying," she said angrily, although she didn't fight his embrace when he wrapped his arms around her. "I'm not."

"You aren't?" Teo asked lightly. "Oh, okay. 'Cause if you were, I would forget about it in the morning."

"You would?"

"Absolutely."

A noise escaped her that was somewhere between a laugh and a sob—then it just melted into sobs. Teo held her while she cried her heart out into his shirt, and gently carried her back to her pallet on his wheelchair when she fell asleep in his arms.


	7. A Visitor

**AN: Whoo! Now not only do I have an outline of this story in my head, I have it **_**on paper**_**. There. Proof that this story will have a definite ending!**

**You guys are gonna love it. ;) I came up with it last night. I also came up with why Zuko would kill Aang. **

**Yes, I am that flipping brilliant. And modest. Humble, too.**

**Haha.**

**Anyway, this should all go a lot faster know that I know EXACTLY what I'm going to do. Expect to see continuous Maiko (hey, it's canon now!) and a sprinkling of Teoph in there (why was this **_**not**_** canon? I ask you). Also, you will see the resolution of Aku's kidnapping; but you'll have to wait and see if there will be a resolution to the war. –evil laughter-**

**I keep you guys on your toes. Muahahahaha.**

**Always remember to review and tell me what you think—this is my personal favorite storyline so far. I also take suggestions very seriously, so feel free.**

It was obvious that Lingsi was meant to be another Ba Sing Se. The streets were filled with vendors and shops, run almost entirely by refugees who had not come there by choice. Many of them had settled down and made a life for themselves, and that much was apparent. Unlike the Earth Kingdom's previous capitol, which kept the war refugees to the outskirts, this city was built by them and for them. There were no walls to divide the people. Newcomers mingled with the residents, living with them, laughing with them. The entire city was united—which made Zuko strongly believe it would survive the war even though Ba Sing Se had not.

Due to the lack of Fire Nation citizens in the city, Toph had convinced him that there was no need for a hooded cloak, especially on such a hot, sunny day. Remembering how no one had recognized him in the walled city so long ago, Zuko easily agreed. He was garbed in a green tunic and brown slacks, while Mai was dressed in a collared sundress with leggings. Aku had taken out his topknot to match his uncle, and was looking around with interest from his perch atop Zuko's shoulders, hand raised against the sun.

"This is amazing, Toph," Zuko said with a smile as they waited for a stone train car loaded with people—pushed by an earthbender—to pass. "How long did this take you?"

"The project had been gathering earthbenders for a while," Toph replied as she walked alongside him. "They had already constructed about half of this when we arrived. We helped them finish the job even as refugees were already streaming in, and we're continually expanding. We've had to divide our benders into departments just to keep up. The construction department's been working constantly since we founded it."

"Sounds like the beginnings of a government," Mai commented from Zuko's other side. Toph nodded.

"I'm not real big into the political scene; but we've got this guy, Xin Yi, who worked under the Earth King _before_ the Earth King we knew. He's been organizing a government ever since the project started, and I'm pretty sure he was part of the original planning team, too. We're run by a council of five generals, but they're part of a large thing called 'The Board'. They take a large part in the council's decisions, and everyone else who's important is on that."

Aku looked down. "Like you?"

She smiled, staring straight ahead. "Like me."

They wandered from vendor to vendor, buying food and clothes and all sorts of things. Aku wanted a wooden flute—the vendor gave him a scroll that taught how to use it for free.

"You must get a large income from these markets," Zuko said as they walked down another wide, sunlit street.

"Huge," Toph replied, holding her arms out wide with a satisfied grin. "I don't know the numbers, but I know even with only minimal taxes set by the council, all the merchants who've moved here are making this city rich. Three years from now you probably won't even recognize it."

"It's incredible all the same," Mai said thoughtfully, looking around at the stone houses, the paintings people had put on some of the walls, the children running down the open streets and laughing in the sunshine, "how you managed to build so much out of nothing."

A ball flew their way—without a second glance, Toph twisted a foot, and a column of earth sent it right back the way it came. They heard the cheers and whoops of young boys; Toph grinned. "It wasn't just us. We only gave the people hope—it's amazing what they can do with it."

-x-x-

"Wow, are those all spear blades?" Teo asked when he wheeled up. Haru turned and smiled, another rock in his hand. The pile of stone blades lay in a box to his side, already overflowing.

"Yep," he said, obviously very proud. "They're getting easier as I go." Even as he spoke, he pressed his fingers into the stone in his hands and started to bend it into shape. "I've already got three carpenters working on the handles. And they can attach the blades when I give them these."

Teo picked up a blade with wonder, testing its edge with his thumb. "Amazing," he said, taking it by the long, blunt end. All the blades had a long 'tail' to them, which would be used to hold them to the wood without wasting any of the sharp edges. Teo placed it between his fingers, closed one eye and squinted, then pitched the blade at the opposite wall.

It struck the wall on its flat side, and clattered to the ground.

"You think Mai would teach _me_ how to throw knives?" Teo asked with a sigh as he rolled over to pick it back up. Haru chuckled, opening his mouth to answer—

—all of the sudden, there was a knock at their door, and a voice that seemed familiar: and breathless.

"Hello? Please, is anyone there? Toph?"

Haru leapt to his feet, but Teo had already skillfully spun his wheels to get there first. He opened the door, peering outside—

"Suki!" he exclaimed, eyes wide. She was clinging to the doorframe, completely out of breath. Even hunched over, he could see the slight swell of her belly beneath her dusty and worn Earth Kingdom dress. She looked up at him through a tangled mess of brown hair.

"Toph…I need Toph…"

Haru walked up behind Teo—and only just managed to catch the exhausted warrior before she hit the floor.

-x-x-

Mai went straight to work as soon as she saw Suki. "I need a bucket of cold water," she commanded to no one in particular, kneeling by the bedside. "And a rag. Then I need a glass of water—_clean_ water—and I need someone to make a soup."

"What kind of soup?" asked Teo.

"Any kind."

He nodded curtly, then turned to the little prince. "Come on, Aku. You can help me."

Zuko mouthed a quick 'thank you' to the boy as he rolled past, Aku in his lap. Teo just smiled and nodded.

"What happened?" Toph demanded, looking both angry and worried. Haru ran a hand over his eyes.

"We heard a knock at the door. She was there, looking completely exhausted and totally out of breath—all she would say was 'Toph. I need Toph.'"

Toph kept her eyes fixed on the ground: it was apparent she was 'looking' at the pregnant young woman lying on her bed. Suki was a mess—but Zuko had a feeling Toph may have been looking at the miniature heartbeat inside of her. Sokka's child.

"Where's the bucket of cold water? And the rags?" Mai asked dangerously from the bedside. Zuko instantly headed for the well—Haru escaped to the linen closet.

Toph hesitated. Then she asked, in a voice as calm as she could make it, "Is she going to be all right?"

Mai's expression softened. She glanced down at Suki, sleeping peacefully, and replied, "Yes. She's just a little dehydrated and tired. And I'm sure she probably hasn't eaten recently. But she's going to be just fine."

Toph swallowed. "Good," she whispered. "And the baby?"

"I'm sure the baby is all right," Mai said, standing and dusting off her sundress. "But I can't tell for certain. I'm not very experienced with childbirth—I don't know what starvation would do to a baby."

The earthbender's eyes burned, and she turned away quickly. "Tell me when she wakes up," she said quietly, walking out of the room. "She wanted to talk to me."

"I know. I will."

-x-x-

It was strange, really, that Teo always knew where Toph was going to be. He didn't think a thing of it, of course, but Haru would just watch and smile at his ability to read her like an open book.

He wheeled into the forest, taking a path Haru had carved especially for him. It was a little bumpy, but Teo ignored it. He had gone this way many times before—as had they all.

The trees opened up into a clearing, letting the sunlight shine. Toph lay on her side in the middle, her ear pressed to the ground, her back to him.

"Listening again?" Teo said conversationally, making his way around the perimeter of the clearing. Toph didn't look up.

"Yes."

He found a nice place in the shade beneath an oak tree, and parked his wheelchair. He placed his hands in his lap. "What's so interesting about it?" he asked, studying her. "You do it a lot."

There was a short silence. Then: "It lets me escape the rest of the world, I suppose, if I wanted to be dramatic about it."

"I don't see anything dramatic about that."

He heard her sigh. "I do. The great heroine of the last sanctuary in the world, too pressured by her adoring fans and worshippers, always running away to the forest to be alone. It sounds like a play."

He pondered this for a moment. The response he was yearning to say was already pushing at the front of his mind—but he didn't know if it was wise to say. Finally, plucking up his courage, he replied: "Or…an overworked and stressed young woman, consumed with worry over the man she cared for, his wife, and his unborn child, is frustrated by the fact that she can do nothing, and runs away to listen to sounds in the earth in order to forget that fact."

_This_ silence was absolute. Impenetrable. Solid. Neither of them made a single movement, or a single noise. The breeze was dead. All that was left was the sunlight, pouring like a golden liquid over Toph's still form.

All of the sudden, she whirled into a sitting position to face him, her face contorted with sadness and pain. "Damn you," she whispered. The satisfaction of being right didn't even make him want to smile.

"There's nothing wrong with being worried, Toph," he said gently. "And there's _absolutely_ nothing wrong with wanting to get away from it all sometimes."

"There _is_ something wrong, however," she argued, her voice cracking, "in wishing that that being, that little creature inside Suki, doesn't exist. Never existed. In wishing that that strong, smart, beautiful woman in there—a woman who he _deserves_—never met Sokka." Her voice was rising, her eyes were beginning to spill over. Teo sat and watched sadly, his hands clasping each other tightly. "And there _is_ something wrong," she cried, "in instead of getting rid of those feelings, escaping them and denying they exist! No, Teo, I am doing something, very, very wrong, so shut up! And _stop—looking—at—me—like—that!_"

He wheeled forward slowly. "Like what?" he whispered. She hiccupped, tears already streaming down her face.

"Like…like…like I'm a child!" she shouted at last. "Like I'm a child who's upset about not getting what she wants! I _know_ he loves her, dammit, and there isn't a single thing I can _do_ about it!"

"We all get upset, Toph, when we don't get the things we want," Teo said, still moving cautiously towards her. "All of us. I was upset when I found I could never walk again, right after I had learned how to. I was upset when I learned I would never see my mother again. I was upset when I couldn't participate in races, in ball games, when I couldn't ride an ostrich-horse, when I couldn't learn to swim…but that doesn't make me a child. And it doesn't make you one, either."

She looked up at him, sitting cross-legged on the ground, her expression still drawn tight with frustration and sorrow. He stopped his wheelchair, pulled a spare handkerchief out of his pocket, and leaned forward to hand it to her with a small, encouraging smile. She paused—then, with another hiccup, she smiled back ever-so-slightly and accepted the handkerchief.

"Thanks," she said softly, wiping her eyes and breathing deeply.

"You're welcome," he replied kindly. She stared at the handkerchief in her hands, her crying stopped.

"This is the second time you've seen me crying over him," she realized aloud. Teo tried not to wince—he knew she would see it.

"I don't think a thing of it, Toph," he said immediately. "And I'd never tell anyone, either."

She stared at the cloth a moment longer, then stood. "Yeah, I know," she said with a small grin, reaching over to hug him. He wrapped his arms around her, resting his chin on her shoulder.

"I'm always here for you, Toph. You know that."

Toph took a deep, shaky breath. "Yeah. I know." Then she pulled away, and walked back towards the path he had just come from.

Teo rubbed his neck—although her sobs had stopped, her tears had not. Her cheeks had been wet when she hugged him.

And she had taken his handkerchief.

He smiled bitterly, and turned his wheelchair around to follow her.

-x-x-

"Where's Toph?" was the first thing she said. Mai sighed.

"Haru just went to get her, she's in the city right now. Please, just drink some soup."

Suki eyed the woman warily—but her gaze soon turned hungry as she spotted the steaming bowl in her hands. Mai handed it to her. "Go slow," she ordered firmly, glaring slightly at her patient. "Or else you'll end up throwing it all back up again."

The warrior glared back in response, but obeyed.

"Is she eating?" Zuko asked when he walked into the room. Immediately he could sense the tension in the air—which only increased as soon as Suki noticed him.

"All right, look," she snapped, placing the bowl back on the bedside table, "I've had enough of this. First I've got the knife-lady serving me soup and wiping my forehead with wet rags, now I've got Prince Screw-Up-Everything asking me if I'm eating! Can you at least tell me if I'm dreaming or not? I'd like that truth, at least." And there she sat, hands on her hips, glaring at Mai, then Zuko, then back again. Zuko shifted uncomfortably, inching his way towards the door—Mai had no such qualms.

"My husband and I, along with our nephew, are living with Toph, Haru, and Teo," she said briskly. "I have been taking care of you ever since you fainted at our door. Zuko fetched you water, Teo and my nephew made your soup, and Haru fetched blankets and cloths. We were all working together to make you as comfortable as possible, but if you choose not to show gratitude, that's perfectly fine with me." With that, she stood abruptly and walked past Zuko out the door with a final: "Enjoy your soup."

Suki, slack-jawed, looked astounded as she watched Mai make her exit. Zuko cleared his throat. "Sorry, I don't think she likes playing nursemaid," he apologized. "And I think she was expecting…well, never mind."

"Will you please tell me what's going on?" Suki asked in a voice that was almost pleading. "Where's Toph? And why are _you_ living with her?"

"Uncle Zuko!" Aku cried, making his way into the room completely filthy and covered in dirt. "Look at what I got!" In his hands was a bright orange carrot as filthy as he was, the long grassy top almost to the floor. Zuko smiled.

"You picked that all by yourself?" he asked. Aku nodded proudly.

"Yup! Teo showed me how!"

Zuko gestured to Suki, who was staring at Aku with an odd expression on her face. "Our guest is awake."

His nephew turned suddenly, noticing the tired-looking woman bathed in sunlight on the bed. He blinked, staring. Then he held up his carrot.

"Did you see what I picked?" he asked. Suki laughed softly and nodded.

"Yes. It's very beautiful."

Aku grinned. "I picked it all by myself!"

"So I heard!" she responded brightly. "What are you going to do with it?"

"I dunno," he said, looking down at the filthy vegetable in his muddy hands, appearing to think the question over carefully. "I think I'm gonna eat it."

And with that, he hobbled quickly out the door again.

"Wash it and peel it first!" Zuko called after him. "Ask Teo to help you!" He heard a faint 'okay' from several rooms over, and he leaned against the doorframe again. Suki was looking at the door through which he had vanished, the odd expression returning.

"Your nephew?" she asked quietly. He nodded.

"Azula's child." Wide brown eyes met his.

"Azula had a child?" she breathed. He nodded again in response.

Suki turned to look at the door again. They could both hear his and Teo's laughter in the kitchen.

"I don't understand," she said suddenly, breaking the silence and causing Zuko to glance her way. "I remember that night, Zuko. The night after Aang died. We were all so miserable, so distraught—and we all hated you. Toph and Katara most of all." He flinched, but she continued. "Now Toph has forgiven you enough to let you live in her house with your wife—who isn't exactly a role model either—and Azula's son. _Azula's son._" She threw her hands up in the air, then rubbed her eyes and her forehead. She appeared confused, stressed, and completely overwhelmed. Traveling had apparently taken a great toll on her mental health as well as her physical health.

"Now you're being nice to me," she persisted, dropping her hands into her lap and looking at him intently. "Your wife, who once helped beat me and all of my warrior sisters into submission and threw us into prison, was just wiping my forehead with a cold cloth and serving me soup. You, who killed the Avatar, the one last hope in the world, and betrayed us all, are asking me if I'm eating, and looking at me all mother-hen-like."

Zuko raised an eyebrow. "Am not."

She glared. "Are too. Sokka always used to look at me like that, especially—" She broke off sharply, her face falling. Almost unconsciously, one of her hands moved to rest on her stomach.

"Especially after you told him," he finished quietly. Suki looked away.

"Yeah," she said. "After I told him." There was a small silence after that, while Suki looked out the window with something like sadness in her eyes, and Zuko studied her from his place by the door.

"He wouldn't let you stay and fight," he said. She shook her head no.

"I was so angry with him," she murmured. "I was a little thinner then—no one could tell when I had all those layers on. And the morning sickness wasn't that bad, my back wasn't hurting; I told him I could fight. I told him I should be at his side." Suki turned to look at him then, the anger in her eyes replaced with regret. "He told me I needed to get away with our child. He told me he wouldn't lose both of us."

He could see the tears welling up in her eyes, but she turned away quickly, wiping them away. "I'm sure he's still alive," Zuko said, in an attempt to comfort her. She nodded.

"I know he is." There was no elaboration, although he waited for it. After a beat, she looked up again. "Why is Azula's child with you?"

Zuko shifted a little at the question. "We thought he…needed a little break from his mother," he responded, giving her a meaningful glance. Suki sighed—he knew she understood.

"It must have been tough for him, with her as a mother."

He nodded once, his eyes down. "It was."

She glanced at the door again. "How did he get his limp?" she inquired curiously. "Was he born like that? I knew several children with that problem."

Zuko shook his head slowly. "No…he was struck by lightning."

The blood drained from Suki's face, and her eyes widened. "No…surely not…I mean, _surely_—" He gave her a look. She was instantly silenced; if anything, a bit paler. "Her own _son_?" she breathed in disbelief. "What did the father have to say about it?"

"He was exiled," Zuko replied, "as soon as Azula found out she was pregnant. One of her personal guards."

"Exiled…so predictable," she muttered vindictively, folding her arms and leaning back against the pillows. She stewed there for a moment, then commented: "He's like your child now, I suppose." He nodded.

"As good as."

"Hmm. Your wife likes him?"

"He's grown on her quite a lot. And he adores her. 'Auntie Mai.'"

She chuckled softly. "I'll bet she loves that."

He shrugged with a smile. "I think that name's growing on her too. She's already teaching him how to throw knives."

"Is that so…? No firebending?"

His smile faded instantly—and it didn't escape Suki's notice. "Not anymore."

**AN: CLIFFHANGER!**

**You'll have to wait for the next chapter to hear what Suki's going to tell Toph. :D**

**Yes, I'm evil. Evilly brilliant. Brilliantly evil.**

**Modestly egotistical, perhaps. Egotistically modest.**

**Remember to review: I also like to hear what your theories are. ;)**


	8. Decisions

So much sunlight…Suki hadn't realized how much she had missed it. She simply lay there in bed, one hand on her belly, eyes closed, reveling in the warmth of the sunshine on her skin as it filtered through the window. It had almost always been cloudy at the North Pole, the sky clogged with ice crystals and snow. A sunny day was a rare luxury. There were some days where she just hung a lantern from the ceiling of their hut, lay on the floor, and pretended it was the sun shining down on her—she was that homesick.

Then Sokka would come home, proudly holding a string of freshly-caught fish, and the sharp pain of missing her home would abate. The sunshine suddenly didn't seem as important, not when he swept her up into his arms and warmed her himself. Who needed sun? She had him.

A sigh escaped her as worry closed over her heart again. The look on his face as he told her to run; the desperate kiss they had shared before he had grabbed his sword and left; the tears, warm on her cheeks, as she watched the walls of the great Northern Water Tribe city crumble into the ocean. Automatically, her fingers reached into her bodice, and pulled out a small piece of paper. Worn with use, yellow with dust, torn at the edges, it was soft beneath her fingertips. She pressed it gently to her chest.

_Sokka…_

"Suki!"

She looked up suddenly in surprise—Toph was in her doorway, looking a bit disheveled and wild-eyed. Suki smiled. "Toph. It's so good to see you. You look wonderful with your hair like that."

An uncertain smile made its way to the young earthbender's face, and a hand absently reached up to touch the bun on the back of her head. She had found it a bit more convenient than her previous, looser hairstyle. But the bangs that had hung over her eyes for many years remained. "Thanks, it's good to see you too. You look a bit better than you did yesterday." Suki chuckled.

"I would hope so."

The smile fell from Toph's face, and she made her way to her bedside. "They said you had something to tell me," she said, her expression serious. Suki felt her own smile fade—her grip tightened on the small piece of paper in her hand.

"Yes. I do."

-x-x-

"She says they're coming by sea," Toph told the audience in the kitchen—it was almost like a painting, everyone frozen in place, in the middle of various actions. "The Fire Nation navy is making its way around the southern tip of the continent as we speak."

"Did she say how she knows this?" Haru asked, his voice carefully controlled. Toph nodded—and held up a small, worn piece of paper.

"Sokka sent her a messenger hawk." Haru gently set down the dishes he had been carrying. Teo rolled forward slightly, and Mai placed the knife she had been holding on the counter beside the carrots. Zuko moved closer to her, gently laying a hand on the small of her back. Toph looked down at the paper. "It says they broke out of prison," she read. "They stole messages from the army base's central office, and those messages contained details of the attack. They said the attack on Lingsi will happen the 5th day after the summer solstice."

Teo blinked. "They broke out of prison?"

"It was probably the waterbenders," Zuko interjected from the other side of the kitchen table. "We hadn't yet built a prison for them, and were trying to contain them in a normal prison. I'm sure Sokka found a way to use that to his advantage."

"Are they coming, then?" Mai asked. Toph looked down at the paper in her hands again.

"He says they're going to try to make it here on time, but no promises. They've still got the Fire Nation chasing after them."

Teo noticed the pinch of fear in her expression—she was still worried for Sokka, understandably. He wondered whether Suki had noticed Toph's extreme concern for her husband's safety.

Haru put down the pile of dishes in his arms, and wiped his hands with a towel. "I'll go tell the Council," he said abruptly. "They'll call a meeting of the Board, probably by nightfall."

"Don't stay long," Toph ordered. "We have plans of our own to make, and you have to give us all the news you collect in the city." The tall earthbender nodded curtly, and quickly made his way out the front door. He left only silence in his wake. For several long moments, no one moved, and no one spoke. It almost seemed as if no one breathed. Then:

"What's going to happen?" Aku asked nervously.

"There's going to be a big fight," Zuko replied slowly, watching out the window in front of him as Haru sped along the rippling desert on a large boulder. "Fire Nation soldiers are going to try to invade the city."

"But Haru and Toph won't let them, right?"

Teo noted he'd been omitted from that particular selection of heroes, but he said nothing. He was accustomed to it. "That's right," he said firmly, ignoring the pang in his heart. "Nobody in the city will let them."

-x-x-

"The Board is meeting at sunset," Haru announced when he arrived. Everyone looked up as he walked through the door. "They haven't announced the attack to the general population yet—they want to wait until they have a plan."

"Probably to avoid mass panic," Teo commented, moving a wooden soldier on a game board across from Aku. "They don't want people running scared."

"Especially not when they need them to fight," Toph added bitterly from her seat in the corner.

Zuko and Mai stayed silent. They were both on the couch, Mai lying with her head in Zuko's lap, Zuko's arm laid across her waist. She felt him shift a little bit underneath of her—a bad sign.

She always knew what he was thinking.

Later, she went into Suki's room to find her in the same place as before: still staring out the window at the dying light. Mai cleared her throat—she looked up.

"I…I wanted to apologize," she said haltingly, clasping her hands awkwardly behind her back. "For the way I acted, I mean. I didn't mean to be rude."

The young woman smiled up at her sincerely. "Don't worry about it," she said. "I'm sorry too. I should have realized you were only trying to help: I just never associated you with that kind of thing."

Mai smiled, slightly abashed. "I know I haven't been very friendly in the past." Suki looked away and chuckled. "I'm just glad you've forgiven me for it."

"If Toph trusts you, I trust you," she replied simply. "She's the toughest girl I know. Anyone who earns _her _confidence must be dependable. I mean, she's letting you live in her _house_! I'd trust you with my life!"

They both laughed quietly, each well aware that it was a vast exaggeration. But the grain of truth inside it warmed the conversation all the same, and made it much easier to continue. Mai asked about the North Pole, having never been there herself, and sympathized about the cold, unforgiving weather, and the craving for sunshine and warm air. Suki asked about what it was like to live as wife of a prince, and commiserated on the feeling of being caged, surrounded by people with dazzling false smiles and egos big enough to fill a room.

They discussed having husbands, both the good and the bad. They discussed running a household—and all the physical labor. Then the conversation turned to children.

"To tell you the truth, I'm a little nervous," Suki admitted, looking down at her belly and laying a gentle hand on it. "I don't know if…if I can handle it. Being a mother. I mean, I would protect my child with my life, of course…" Mai nodded.

"But you're afraid you'll mess up, being a parent. You're afraid you'll mess up your child." Suki bit her lip, and nodded.

"Are you afraid of that?"

Mai sighed, twisting her fingers around each other restlessly. "Yes," she said quietly. "I was afraid I'd never be good enough. I didn't want that responsibility. I didn't need something else to love—I had Zuko. And I didn't want the baggage, both physical and emotional. I didn't want the pressure of always having to be a role model, I didn't want to be looked up to." Suki tilted her head in sympathy.

"But that's what you got when Aku came."

A bittersweet smile came over the young woman's face. "Yes.

"I had met Aku once before Zuko took him. He knew I was Zuko's wife, so he asked me questions about where he was, etc. I didn't think much of it. I don't think he did either: he didn't even know my name at the time. But on the boat…he wanted to know everything about me. He started calling me Auntie Mai, he asked me about my favorite colors and why my hair was so weird—" She touched the two knots on either side of her head, and Suki laughed. "—and I decided to teach him how to use knives. He's a fast learner."

"So you like him?" she asked with a quirked smile.

Mai gave one in return, her eyes bright. "Yes."

Suki clasped her hands over her middle, looking down at them. "You're lucky you got to skip all the infant stuff," she said with a small laugh. "And you didn't have to give birth."

"_That_ I am very thankful for."

The two women shared a smirk.

"Auntie Maaaaaai," Aku called from somewhere in the house. "Where's Uncle Zuko?"

Mai's smile fell, and she quickly glanced out the window. Sunset.

She knew exactly where Zuko was.

She had been right.

-x-x-

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Toph asked as they stood outside the council building. Zuko straightened his shoulders and nodded.

"I'm sure."

"You don't have to fight, Zuko," Haru said quietly, laying a hand on the other man's shoulder. "You have a wife and a child, nephew or not. And you have no obligation to this city."

The former prince turned to him, and Haru was immediately struck by how resolute he looked, standing there in the light of the streetlamps. "My wife and child live here now," he said flatly. "I have _every_ obligation to this city."

None of them had any argument to that.

The Board Chamber was vast, but not many seats were filled. It was stadium seating, with chairs and tables sitting row by row in a semicircle around the center, steadily rising towards the high vaulted ceiling. Five older men milled around in the center, either talking amongst themselves or to the people now seated in the first few rows. Toph, Haru, and Zuko each took a chair, while Teo parked his wheelchair in the aisle next to Zuko.

"That's the Council," Teo told Zuko, pointing at the five men in the center. "They run all the Board meetings, and they make the final decisions after the Board has discussed it."

"Are their decisions absolute?" Zuko asked curiously. Teo shook his head.

"I don't know all the details, but I know there's a certain veto rule that allows the Board to cancel any decision made by the Council, just as the Board cannot make a decision without the agreement of the Council. But it takes a vast majority of the Board to overturn any decision—most of the power lies with those five men, even though they have to try to please as many people as possible in their verdicts." Zuko was impressed. They had made a very efficient form of government.

The eldest of the five men pounded a gavel against a podium. "Order!" he cried to the general audience. "The meeting shall now begin!"

Conversations simmered down to a few mutters and whispers as the man stepped down from the podium and returned to his seat at the center table. Another man stood up, walked to the podium, and announced, "Would Toph Bei Fong and her group come to the center, please? I believe they have an announcement to make."

"Her 'group'?" Zuko asked Teo as they all stood and made their way down to the center of the room.

"Any speaker is allowed to have his supporters back him up when he goes to speak," Teo responded quietly. "Because sometimes it takes more than one person to convey all the details in a convincing manner. The more people you have with you, the more persuasive you seem. The only rule is that every person must speak. They cannot be there just for moral support, or for show of force. That way, they must make a statement stating their beliefs, and that can be thrown back in their face if they only came down there to make it look like someone had a lot of supporters."

The brilliant level of government these people had continued to impress Zuko.

Toph walked up to the podium, and absolute silence fell over the Board. Haru, Teo, and Zuko all gathered around her—but Zuko tried his best to stay in the shadows.

"Yesterday," she said, her voice commanding and confident. "An old friend arrived at my house, having traveled all the way from the Northern Water Tribe." There were several mutterings—it was a significant distance away. "She brought a message with her, a message confirmed by someone I know and trust personally. He had infiltrated a Fire Nation prison, commandeering some of its land vehicles, and taking note of some of its important documents. Several of those documents described in detail an attack planned by the Fire Nation—an attack on Lingsi."

_That_ caused more than a few mutters. After an instant of shocked silence, there was a complete uproar. Several people stood and shouted at Toph, chastising her viciously for bringing such horrible lies to the Board. One unhelpful woman began shrieking—until she was slapped by a short-tempered neighbor. All the other members were discussing the news in loud, panicked, urgent tones. Zuko shrank back a little, further into Toph's shadow. Toph herself had stiffened, and her knuckles were white where they clenched the edges of the podium. He could barely hear her muttering fiercely under the din:

"Blithering, panicky, stupid, mindless, dim-witted, _moronic_—"

"Order!" the eldest Council member was shouting as he repeatedly struck his desk with his gavel. Although the sound resonated wildly in the vast stone chamber, it had little to no effect. "Order in the Board! For the sake of all Spirits, _sit down!_" he roared finally, in a voice that was louder than Zuko would have thought possible coming from a man his age.

Slowly, the crowd complied. One by one the members lowered themselves into their chairs once more, the din was quieted, and the Board was once more silent and looking down to the center of the room. The Council member eased himself into his seat with a few crackling joints, then gestured kindly for Toph to continue.

The young woman took a deep breath. "This is not a joke, and it is not a lie. The information is fact: not story, and not rumor."

Haru spoke up: "The truth of this information is not questionable, and not open for debate. The Fire Nation navy is planning to attack Lingsi's walls by sea five days after the summer solstice. At this time they are already rounding the southern tip of the continent. We must make provisions to prepare."

"Exactly what are you proposing?" a member called out with frown from the middle of the audience. Teo rolled forward.

"We've already been preparing for this day ever since Lingsi was founded," he said. Zuko was impressed by his calm, authoritative demeanor. The boy was a natural public speaker. "We knew, as the last sanctuary in the Earth Kingdom, we would be targeted by the Fire Nation. How could we not? We represent the last fragments of the free world."

He drifted off into silence then, nudging Zuko lightly beneath the podium. Zuko blinked, his mind struggling to catch up. That's right, everyone in the group had to talk, to add to the discussion… Reluctantly, he stepped out from behind Toph, ducking his head humbly. In his mind, he really had no right to be there. This wasn't his city. He was just willing to defend it, that was all. More than willing. He would do whatever it took to protect the haven these people had built, the haven that he and his family now shared.

Still, that was a little bit of a far cry from what he knew he had to say now. He knew he was a stranger in this city; telling these people what he thought they should do felt presumptuous. But what choice did he have?

"We humbly propose to the Board," he began, "that the precautions and preparations for the attack that have already been made be set in motion. The army is trained and willing: just give them a battle plan. You have inventors working on defense systems and weapons: now you can give them a deadline. You can begin planning for a siege, which is a very real possibility. You can give weapons to non-bending fighters—I know for a fact that those preparations have already been taken care of." He thought of Haru shooing Aku away from a box of sharp stone blades, and had to bite back a smile. The Board was listening attentively now, their focus determined. "You have been getting ready for this day for years," he continued. "Now it is upon you. You must be ready: and you can be." With that, he stepped back, hands clasped tightly behind him. Haru clapped a hand on his shoulder—Teo elbowed him with a grin, mouthing, 'Awesome.' Zuko grinned back in return. Toph brushed past them all to move to the front.

"We leave the decisions up to the Board and the Council, considering our suggestions," she announced. "I and my group step down and hand the discussion to the Council."

-x-x-

It was very, very late that night when Toph, Teo, Haru, and Zuko arrived back at the house, exhausted and worn. The discussion had lasted for hours. Zuko, who was used to the slow-moving debates of the Fire Nation court, was surprised by the amount of progress they made. They had decided to leave the battle plan up to the commanders of the army. Haru would distribute weapons to the non-bending citizens, and they would attend training classes supervised by a few former Kyoshi warriors. (Zuko managed to figure out from the discussion that these women were much, much older, and had probably never met Suki or any of her friends like he had originally thought.) The construction department would turn their focus to creating a thick, impenetrable wall of earth to separate Lingsi from the beach, where most of the fighting would be taking place. Teo's father, the Mechanist (who was living separately in the middle of the city) was immediately alerted to the imminent threat, and he responded in a message that he had already been working on several weapon prototypes, and it wouldn't take long to finish them—added to the inventions he had already finished, they were well-equipped. Preparations for a siege were to be decided the next day.

The entire house was dark when they walked through the door. Zuko swiftly lit some candles, handed them out, said goodnight, and walked to his bedroom.

When he entered, he saw exactly what he expected to find: Mai sitting on their bed, arms folded, legs crossed, already in her nightgown with her long black hair about her shoulders, looking very, very dangerous.

He shut the door, and braced himself.

Her syllables were short and abrupt: "Ab-so-lute-ly _not_."

"Mai…" he began with a sigh, placing the candle on the bedside table and extinguishing it. The room was already well-lit by the lantern hanging above the headboard.

"I said no, and I mean it," she snapped. Zuko turned away, taking off his tunic and laying it on the dresser.

"These people could use an extra hand," he said quietly. She spluttered, sounding as if she were struggling very hard to keep her voice down in the sleeping household.

"You don't owe these people anything!" she exclaimed softly. "Nothing! And yet you're willing to just go and risk your life for them? Fighting against your own country, your own country's soldiers?"

"I'm protecting a safe haven for those people hurt by my country, by my country's soldiers," Zuko replied with a touch of chill in his voice. Mai was silenced. He continued to undress, laying his broadswords against the wall and pulling on his nightclothes. "And it's not even just that, Mai," he continued, turning towards her. "We live here now. _You _live here now. Aku lives here. It may as well be our country."

She turned away from him, towards the lantern. "That doesn't mean you have to fight," she muttered. "It doesn't mean you have to go chasing glory or honor or…or whatever it is you're supposed to get from battle."

She was upset, and he knew it. He moved to sit beside her on the bed, and wrapped his arms around her shoulders gently. "I'm not after those things. You know that."

Mai leaned into him wearily. "That doesn't make it any easier for me, Zuko. Or for Aku."

He winced. "He'll understand, I'm sure," he whispered. Mai wasn't sure whether he was talking to her, or himself. "He's a child. I'll be a hero, just like Toph and Haru."

"And I'll be a lonely, wrinkly old widow raising her nephew with the only two other people unable to go into battle: the overly-optimistic handicapped wheeler, and the motherly warrior wife," she said dryly, pulling away from him and standing. Zuko chuckled.

"It's hard to imagine you being wrinkly," he said frankly as she moved around the bed. She looked back at him sharply.

"It's hard to imagine being a widow."

Zuko's smile fell. Mai walked over to her side of the bed, got under the covers, and lay still with a small sigh. It was clear that was the end of the discussion for her.

But it wasn't for him.

He extinguished the lantern, getting into bed himself. Then he moved over, closer to her, and leaned over to kiss her cheek. "I'm sorry, Mai," he said softly. Mai rolled over to face him—and in the moonlit darkness, he could see the pain in her expression.

"You're a fool," she whispered, absently tracing his jawline with a finger. "Your emotions reign over you too much."

Zuko caught her hand. "Emotion's not such a bad thing."

"Easy for you to say," she mumbled. "It's so much easier to live without it. But having you in my life has made that quite impossible."

He raised an eyebrow. "'Quite'?"

"Quite."

"I'd like to keep it that way," he murmured, kissing her sweetly. "What a motivation to come back from the battleground alive."

"I never said I'd let you go," she murmured back, but not as firmly as she might have.

"Toph will grind me into dust for not going. She'd say I was being a coward and a hypocrite."

"Not entirely untrue," she teased lightly. Then her frown deepened. "Although, you have a point. Shall I take my chances with fate, or with Toph?"

Zuko grinned. "Fate may be a fickle mistress, but Toph's a merciless bitch when she wants to be."

He heard her giggle, a rare occurrence. "I suppose I'd rather have your body than a pile of dust," she conceded.

"It would look much prettier at a funeral, I'm sure," he said, moving in to kiss her again.

"I would brush your hair and everything," she muttered. "Make you look nice for once."

"I resent that."

As Mai faded into sleep in Zuko's arms, she wondered at what she had just done. Zuko had single-handedly made her change her mind—made her _agree_ with him. Was she going soft? Was she so terribly out of practice in the fine art of saying 'no', and sticking with it?

After a few moments, the expression on his face appeared in her mind. Serious, determined. Sure beyond all doubt. She rubbed the hand on her waist gently, feeling his rougher skin beneath her fingers. She had rarely seen him so certain of himself. Perhaps that was what made her change her mind; the thought that her husband had found a cause he wanted to fight for.


	9. Anticipation

**AN: Eek. It HAS been a while, hasn't it? Many, many apologies. Life sorta got in the way. It's still **_**in**_** the way, actually, but oh well…**

"No, no, NO! I said it should be curved _there!_ By the corner! _Before_ it touched the sand! Knock it down and start over!"

Teo grinned. As much as Toph grumbled and growled about her position as a leader, she sure filled the job well. Not a single earthbender on the construction team dared argue or disobey her, and she instilled in her 'subjects' a real motivation to get the job done. Teo suspected they all secretly admired her a great deal.

He rolled his wheels over the boardwalk to where Toph was directing the team in charge of constructing the wall. The wall was nowhere near as impressive as the one at Ba Sing Se, but they still thought it would do a significant amount to protect the city. And all they had to do was separate the city from the beach, so the project wasn't as significant for earthbenders as it might have been for nonbenders. They were raising the wall one column at a time, carefully regulating the angle at which the wall bent around the city limits. Toph stood a little bit away, discussing something with a group of nonbenders. One of them offered a bit of parchment with designs on it—Teo heard her burst out, "What part of '_completely blind_' do you not understand?! Why are you coming to me with these anyway? Go give them to the Mechanist!" And with a large and violent gesture of her arms, she sent them away.

"Hard at work?" Teo asked with a dry smile, offering her a canteen of cold water. Toph snatched it from his hands with a faint snarl.

"I'm surrounded by stupidity," she muttered, and took a large swig. "Ah, thanks for this. Hits the spot."

"Welcome," he replied brightly, spinning so he sat right next to where she stood—she promptly sat on the ground next to him. "So how's it going?"

"As well as could be expected with a team of halfwits," she replied dryly with another swig.

Teo eyed the completed part of the wall, already as thick as three men were tall, and curving around over half of the beach. "I think they're better than you give them credit for," he said with a raised eyebrow. "Although that might just be your incredible, mind-blowing leadership skills."

Toph snorted into her water. "It doesn't take skill to tell people how stupid they are," she argued, although hints of a smile tugged at her lips. Teo smiled back, elbowing her.

"But you do it so well." She ducked her head and chuckled.

"Thanks, Three-Wheels."

And Teo's day got just a bit brighter.

-x-x-

"Shorter and sharper hits…good. _Snap_ it."

_Clack. Clack…clack._

"Make your hands a little closer, gives you more momentum. Spread your feet. You're too far forward, balance your weight a little more."

The young man leaned back, swinging the staff in a wide, low arc in front of him. The older woman he was fighting just barely managed to deflect it with her own staff—she glanced up at him in surprise.

"Very good, Tomos," Suki praised with light applause from her seat on the hill. "You're progressing nicely! Much better than yesterday! You too, Mamen, that was a good block. You have excellent reflexes." The young man blushed furiously, while the woman gave a proud smile.

Their section of the plains was filled with nonbending members of their foot army—although in Suki's opinion, _none_ of them looked like soldiers—sparring amongst themselves with various weapons. Haru's spears were prevalent, their tips wrapped in cloth to soften their blow. Mai, to everyone's great surprise, had taken control of her own regiment. She had ordered over a thousand small knives, all in different shapes, and was at the other end of the field, teaching her soldiers how to throw them. Suki leaned back in the sunshine, hand over her belly, watching. The tall woman was prowling behind a line of knife-throwers, correcting where she saw fit, calling out quiet reminders to all of them. Each person along the line looked focused, deep in concentration. Suki couldn't imagine Mai would allow any fooling around while she was teaching.

"Auntie Suki! Auntie Suki!" She turned, spotting Aku hobbling up the hill towards her. She smiled.

"Hello, Aku. What are you doing here?"

Panting, the young prince plopped on the ground next to her with a grin. "Mai's teaching 'em stuff I already know," he said plainly, crossing his normal leg under his scarred one. "But she said she can't leave me home alone, and no one's at the house, so I have t'stay here with her until she's done teaching her 'birdies', as she calls 'em."

Suki raised an eyebrow. "'Birdies'?" Aku nodded.

"She never calls them that when they're listening, but she does when she's talking about them with other people."

How interesting. The dry, unemotional noblewoman had given nicknames to her pupils. Could she be getting attached? Suki glanced over to where Mai was instructing—and noticed things she hadn't before. Small smiles to soldiers who did something right, a certain gentleness in her corrections. Although her instructions were always firm, it was the little things that gave her an aura of a caring mother hen.

_It's going to be hard on her, to send them off into battle,_ Suki thought sadly. And they had all seen how she had begun to treat her husband. She had avoided being alone with him, had gone to bed before anyone else, so that when Zuko walked into their bedroom, she was already asleep. But although it obviously pained Zuko, he accepted it without argument, and simply threw himself even more into planning for the defense of Lingsi.

Aku leaned closer, his eyes bright. "Auntie Suki," he whispered. She blinked, and glanced down. "What are you gonna name the baby?"

Her hands unconsciously wrapped tighter around her abdomen, and a certain strange feeling gripped her heart. A smile tugged at her lips. "If it's a girl, we'll name her Kya, since that was Sokka's mother's name. If it's a boy…well, Sokka wanted to name him Angoda."

"Why? Was that your father's name?"

Suki swallowed. "No…we wanted to name him after our friend Aang. He's gone, now."

Aku looked sobered. "That was the Avatar's name, right?"

She nodded. "Right."

"Why not just name him Aang?"

"Because that's an airbender name," Suki said softly, her fingers clenching at the fabric of her tunic. "And there are no airbenders left."

-x-x-

"What did you just say?" Zuko demanded, eyes wide. Haru grinned.

"My father is making you a general at my recommendation," he repeated. "You'll be leading your own troops."

Zuko sat in the nearest seat, staring up at him. "How did you manage that?"

Haru shrugged, the grin still lingering. "I can be persuasive when I want to be. I know you have army experience, so I thought you'd be a real asset if we put you in a leadership position."

Board members were milling around the semicircular chamber, amongst the rows of stadium seats. Several were discussing matters with the five Council members in the center of the chamber, and an entire committee surrounded a table full of the Mechanist's designs. The Mechanist himself was animatedly gesturing to several of the designs, writing in numbers and figures. The chamber was a hive of war discussion.

"I appreciate that, Haru," Zuko said with a smile, shaking Haru's hand happily. "I appreciate that a great deal."

Haru returned the smile—then it faded somewhat. "I do have a question, though," he said, under the dialogue around them. He leaned forward, staring intently. "What about your firebending? Will you use it to fight?"

Zuko looked away, shaking his head. "The way I see it, no sane Earth Kingdom soldier would follow a firebender into battle. I'll fight with my broadswords."

"Good. That's what I wanted to hear," said Haru brightly, despite the sudden, faint despondence in Zuko's manner. He obviously wanted to use his greatest skill to help the cause he was fighting for. In an effort to cheer him up, he added: "You'll make a great general, Zuko. I think we made the right choice."

He sighed, resting his chin on his hand. "Tell that to my wife," he said bitterly. Haru noted the particular pain that laced his expression, and seemed to slump his shoulders. Everyone had seen the way his wife ignored him after he had told her he was going to fight for the earthbenders. Aku hadn't understood it at all, but he seemed to sense that asking either Mai or Zuko about it would be a bad idea. So he just watched in obvious confusion. The rest of them pretended not to notice, carefully averting their gazes or distracting their hands with something else.

Haru sat in a seat in front of him, looking at him with sympathy. "I'm sure she'll come around," he said reassuringly. "I heard from Suki she's taken to her own regiment quite well, even though she grumbled about it at first."

The former prince shook his head, looking tired and worn. "Mai doesn't forgive and forget that easily. She's one of those women who hold grudges. Especially with things that affect her strongly, you know? She doesn't think I should be fighting in this battle, she doesn't think I should put this cause above the wellbeing of my family…and maybe she's right. Maybe I shouldn't."

Haru shook his head. "That's only for you to decide, Zuko," he said firmly. "She may have her own opinions on what you should do, but no one really _knows_ except you."

There was a slight pause. Zuko appeared to be deep in thought. "I want to be here," he said finally. "I want to fight. It _is_ for the wellbeing of my family. I'm trying to defend their home, trying to keep them safe. If the Fire Nation found and captured Mai and Aku, Aku would be sent back to Azula, and Mai…Mai would be executed for high treason." His voice was tight as he said it, and his fingers clenched into a fist in his lap. Haru observed him silently, knowing that horrific images of Aku's return to his mother and Mai's execution were running through his head.

"See?" he said quietly. "You know what you should do. No one can tell you otherwise."

Zuko glanced up with a small, dry smile. "The army really has changed you, hasn't it?"

Haru smiled back. "I'd like to think so."

-x-x-

Dinner that night started as a quiet affair. Suki, who had gone home early to get out of the sun, cooked dinner for them all, since the rest of them were out of the house all day. Teo had helped Toph fend off consultants by going over designs and strategies with them, while Toph could continue to oversee construction of the wall. Mai had extended her instruction to combat training with knives, and Zuko and Haru had met with other generals as well as the commander (Haru's father) to go over strategy and divide the troops into wings and flanks. Aku was so exhausted from running around the practice field all day, he was nearly falling asleep in his noodles. Which meant that the main conversation-starter was quite quiet. And the atmosphere was one of tired contentedness, mixed with a bit of tense anticipation.

They were all weary from the day's work, but satisfied with its results. And none of them had forgotten what they were preparing for.

"Is there going to be a solstice festival tomorrow?" Teo asked conversationally. Haru nodded.

"The Board decided they wanted to keep the citizen's spirits up, and canceling the solstice's celebrations was not the way to do it."

Zuko and Suki nodded in approval; Aku made a happy noise at the end of the table and squirmed in his chair; Toph sighed. "We really should be preparing," she said, although only half-heartedly.

"You need a break, Toph," Teo said firmly. "Your voice is already hoarse from shouting. And I'm sure your feet must ache from all the earthbending you did today."

"I'm fine," she muttered into another forkful of noodles. Zuko and Haru chuckled.

"You're coming with us to the festival," Teo said simply. "No other choice."

Toph muttered something unintelligible in response, but appeared to oblige.

They all ate in general silence for a while, with nothing but the clink of dishes filling the quiet.

"Zuko became a general today," Haru announced proudly, glancing up at Zuko. He blushed a little, ducking his head. Suki and Teo applauded; Toph grinned, saying, "Good for you, Sparky"; Aku cheered loudly. Mai stayed dangerously silent.

"All thanks to Haru," Zuko said humbly, not unaware of the perilous turn of mood in his wife. "I'm not sure I deserve it, honestly."

"Of course you do," Suki said brightly. "You've worked as hard as anyone else to help defend this city."

"But because he's willing to die, they give him a rank," Mai said coldly.

This time, the silence was absolute. Aku's smile was frozen on his face, although his eyes looked terribly confused. Haru and Teo looked away, Suki bit her lip at the sight of a confused Aku, and Toph, staring straight ahead, clenched her fingers on the tablecloth. Zuko looked pained.

"Mai, I'm trying to make a difference. I can do that a lot better with—"

"There are many ways of making a difference." Her voice could have frozen water.

"I'm good at this, Mai," he replied angrily. "I'm letting the city take advantage of that."

"At the expense of your family?" she demanded, furiously turning to look at him.

"_For_ my family!" he exclaimed, standing suddenly. Everyone at the table stared. "I'm not going to sit here and let others defend everyone I love! I'm not going to stay at home while people die to protect my home! I _can't_, Mai, I just _can't_! Do you know what would happen if the Fire Nation found you? You'd be executed, Mai, publicly burned in the capitol square, while Aku watched from Azula's side."

Aku had stuck his bent first finger in his mouth, something he hadn't done in a very, very long time, and was looking at his aunt and uncle with something like fear. Haru gently laid a hand on his shoulder.

Mai was looking at Zuko with extreme pain in her expression, matched only by Zuko's own. "I know you don't want to realize it, Mai," he said in a choked voice. "But I want you to be safe, and in order for that to happen, if I have to be willing to die, then so be it. I was proud to be made a general on nothing more than Haru's recommendation, because that meant that I could do more to defend you. And I promise I will."

Mai slowly rose to meet her husband's height, without taking her eyes from his. Her gaze had softened, and her expression was something close to pleading. "I don't want you to go," she whispered.

Zuko gently wrapped his arms around her—Mai let her head fall on his shoulder, eyes closed. "I know, Mai," he said softly, stroking her hair. "I would promise to come back to you if I could."

"I know," she replied. "But you can't, so don't try. No one can make me that promise."

He kissed the top of her head. "Everything will be fine, Mai," he said. "I can promise you that. We have friends, we're together, we have a home. The city is well-prepared for a battle. We know when they're coming, so they won't catch us by surprise. We'll go to the solstice celebrations tomorrow and forget about everything for a while."

"That might not be such a good idea, forgetting," Mai said.

"We've worked hard. I think we deserve a day of irresponsibility," Zuko teased, pulling away. Looking her in the eye, he raised an eyebrow. "Don't you?"

She couldn't help it—she smiled. "You're helpless. I can't believe they made you a _general_."

He just laughed, kissing her impulsively. "Your confidence is empowering," he said softly, still smirking. She chuckled, shook her head, and turned back to the dinner table—

--to find that everyone else had tactfully taken their dishes outside to the front porch, leaving she and Zuko were alone in the dining room.

Zuko brightly took up his own plate and hers, then gestured to the front door. "Shall we?"


End file.
